Hunters in the Dolomites
by Prof. Voodoo
Summary: A collaborative story by multiple authors of the Cyborg Central Gunslinger Girl forum. Marisa & Triela go on a routine safe-house raid, but bad intel sets the whole operation on its head. Now it's all hands on deck for SWA Section Two.
1. Chapter 1

**What follows is a collaborative effort by the Cyborg Central Gunslinger Girl Forum. It features multiple authors writing with little or no knowledge of what their fellow authors are doing, with one writer/editor assembling the story.**

**As of today the story is incomplete and open for submissions. If you are a writer interested in participating, pay us a visit on the forum.  
****Enjoy**

**Hunters in the Dolomites**

**By Prof. Voodoo**

Spring had come to _Alto Adige_in the foothills of South Tyrol. While the high mountain peaks to the north had not yet given up their snowy caps the lowlands were abloom with grasses and wildflowers enjoying the return of vernal sun.

Through this idyllic landscape Marisa scrambled from rock to rock, at times getting a little further ahead than her handler would have liked. If she were not so easily distracted the young cyborg would have outdistanced her Master by kilometers by now. "Mari...slow down a bit," Elio called ahead to her, "the map says we're getting close."

"I can see the house!" she reported back, "And Triela & Mr. Hillshire too."

"Well get down then, if you can see the safe-house they can see you too!"

_Not likely_ thought Marisa, but she kept that sentiment to herself. Elio was always giving her the business about not being careful enough and she didn't feel like getting that lecture on such a nice day. The Padania safe-house was still over a kilometer away and any lookouts would have to be using a pretty impressive set of binoculars to spot her on the grassy hillside. Further away she could see two figures approaching from the North, Triela and Mr. Hillshire right on schedule. Mari crouched down and held onto the rocks to stabilize herself and make the most of her enhanced vision. "Oh my gosh...Elio! Come up here! You have to see what they're wearing!"

"Never known you to be a fashionista," grumbled the handler, catching up with his charge at last, "you must be spending too much time around Kara." He sat down on the rock where she was crouching and took a mouthful of water from the leather bag around his neck.

"Seriously Elio, you gotta see this" she insisted, raiding his backpack for the binoculars and thrusting them into his hands.

Much slower than she would have liked, Elio focused the glasses and scanned the hillside until he picked out the other fratello moving down the trail. A snort of a laugh escaped Alboreto's lips in spite of himself. "Marisa, normally I would tell you not to make fun of what other people choose to wear, but in this case I've got to agree with you." He pulled his Agency satellite phone from his pocket and dialed Victor Hillshire.

"This is Hillshire."

"Victor, you look like an extra from _The Sound of Music_."

Elio could hear Triela's voice in the background; "We look like _what_?" No cyborg had any difficulty hearing a mobile phone speaker from meters away and her disdain for musicals was well known around Section Two.

The German was quick to defend himself. "I'll have you know this is authentic Bavarian _Tracht_, and it's the perfect outfit for this kind of hiking."

"I'll take you at your word for it" chuckled the older man, "just remind me to get a photo of you & Triela in leather shorts and braces to show around the Agency."

"I have no reason to be ashamed of my national heritage" Hillshire retorted.

That drew even more teasing from his colleague. "Victor...you're from the Moselle Valley, not Bavaria! That's like Fernando wearing a cowboy hat just because he's a Yank!"

"Alboreto, aren't you running low on mobile minutes yet?" grumbled Hillshire.

It was with this jovial attitude that the two fratelli zeroed in on their target...a relatively soft target at that. There were reportedly five Padania agents holed up in a safe-house north of Merano. Normally this would not have merited the deployment of two fratello teams but "business" had been slow lately and as most of Section Two was home on compound the Agency could easily afford the extra girlpower. With Alboreto approaching from the south and Hillshire coming down out of the northern hills they planned to hit the safe-house from two directions.

Both teams were in position; the cyborgs would attack the front and back doors while their handlers stayed behind to provide fire support should any Five Republics Faction agents escape. Crouched behind some rocks Marisa gave her Kel-Tech RBF a last minute check and stuffed a few extra magazines in her cargo shorts. "Doubt I'll need these" she commented but Elio was quick to correct her casual attitude.

"I know this is a milk run, but that's no reason to get complacent. Easy missions get cocked-up very easily."

"Yes sir" she replied with a nod to affirm her focus. For his part, Elio was setting up his H&K G3/SG1 on a bipod. Marisa noted that he was trying out a new scope and could not resist pointing it out. "So...easy missions are a good opportunity to try out new gear?" she asked rhetorically. Elio did not quantify her remark with a response.

Hillshire was still on the line. "You two ready?"

"We're both ready," Alboreto confirmed, "lets switch to radios and get a comm check."

Triela & Marisa already had their headset radios on and once the handlers had donned their own all four ran through a quick equipment check. "Everything sounds good...Victor, you give the go signal when you're ready."

"Copy...3...2...1...Go!"

From opposite directions the two cyborgs sprinted out of hiding, covering the last 150 meters to the safe-house at Olympic level speed. Even at this torrid pace Mari could not resist a little comm chatter teasing of her elder sister. "Are you gonna make it to your door on time or should I just kill all five before you get there?"

"Big talk short stuff...but I promise to leave one alive for you so you don't feel bad about going back to compound with a big _zero_ on your score-card." Both handlers keyed their radios to chide the girls for casual chatter but they hit their buttons at the same time, thereby canceling out both transmissions.

With longer legs and a more powerful Series One body Triela had an easier time of covering the sprint across rocky ground, but Marisa's dogged ferocity and competitive streak would not allow her to be beaten to the chalet. Both girls arrived at the same instant and without losing an ounce of momentum crashed through their respective doors. Aware that there were an odd number of targets to be split between them, neither cyborg was willing to end the day with a lesser score than her sister.

The sight that greeted them upon bursting into the alpine chalet was not of five heavily armed Padania terrorists. At first count Triela saw at least three times that number...milling around casually, preparing food and watching a tennis match on TV. They looked at both gun-toting girls with surprise, and for a few shell-shocked seconds everyone in the room was so completely silent that it was possible to hear the commentary on the television clearly. Hearing no shots, Hillshire's voice broke the quiet. "Triela, Marisa, report...what's going on?"

"Get them!" yelled a grizzled, one-eyed veteran, reaching for a Škorpion sub-machine gun.

"Oh shit..." Triela muttered, and let loose one deafening blast from her shotgun before diving into a defensive position behind a sofa. Marisa rushed the kitchen, blasting the area with a full magazine of 7.62mm before making a face first slide behind the counter. She rolled over, and after a quick check to make sure the two Padania men lying beside here were in fact dead and not just covered in ketchup, ejected her empty magazine and slammed in a fresh one.

"Hillshire, we got bad intel!" yelled Triela over her radio, "This place is crawling with Padania...at least 20...more coming out of the bedrooms!"

"Copy, get yourselves out of there!" barked her handler in response.

Triela got up on her knees and fired two more shells. "Did you hear that Mari? Bug out!"

"Kinda busy right now!" the redhead answered. She was backed into a corner, trying to defend two vulnerable firing vectors at once.

"Both of you, get low and crawl out!" ordered Elio Alboreto. From his position 150 meters away he began firing at any target that appeared in his scope, shattering glass windows & doors. Hillshire followed his lead, pounding the building with suppressive fire in the hopes that it would give the girls a chance to reach an exit.

Inside was a scene of chaos. Very few of the Padania soldiers had actually stood to fight. Unclear on the size of the force attacking them most were grabbing weapons and supplies and running for the doors. Cars poured from the garage...more than it seemed could reasonably fit inside the structure. Elio & Hillshire had set up specifically to mop up any escapees like this but with their partners in danger they had to concentrate their attention on the chalet.

"Hillshire! Mr. Alboreto! Hold your fire...I repeat, hold fire!" demanded Triela.

The two handlers locked their weapons down and began a fast advance on the house. Their pace was not nearly as rapid as that achieved by the cyborgs but adrenaline pushed the two middle aged men quicker than they normally would have gone. Upon entering the chalet they breathed a sigh of relief.

Save for Triela & Marisa, who had suffered nothing worse than a few bruises and splinters from flying wood, the house was empty of living souls. Seven lay dead but the rest had escaped. Triela stood up from her hiding place and gave voice to what was on everyone's mind; "What the hell just happened?"

As soon as Hillshire & Alboreto checked in SWA headquarters became a madhouse of activity. Triela's assessment had been correct; _bad intel_ resulting from the simplest of decoding mistakes. At the center of the storm was one miserable intelligence analyst. Poor Genco Ribisi had only been with the Agency a few months, a low level desk-agent under Priscilla's command. Upon learning the secret of Section Two he had fallen in love with the job, regularly staying late after to help the cyborgs with homework, act as referee for their games or just listen to them talk about their days. The thought that his simple decoding error...mistaking 50 for 5 on an encrypted Public Safety intel dispatch...had placed two of them in mortal danger was devastating to him. Ribisi sat despondently in the corner of the conference room, looking as if he had aged a dozen years in only one day. His supervisor stood next to him with a re-assuring hand on his shoulder, but there was little Priscilla could say to ameliorate the gravity of his screw-up.

Surrounded by a whirlwind of activity, Pieri Lorenzo strode into the conference room. He wasted no time on formalities. "Ladies & gentlemen, we just got _really_ lucky...perhaps twice. The Padania could have dealt us a costly loss today but they missed their opportunity. Furthermore, we can still pull out a big win here. I've just been on the phone with the Minister of Defense; she's got Carabinieri & regular Army sealing off all the main roads in the area. At least 43 remaining Padans are trapped in a reasonably sealed-off area...it's up to us to go in and mop them up. Time is of the essence, people. We can nail these bastards if we work fast.

"Ferro; you and Jean set up a remote command post. Doctors Donato & Bergonzi will join you in the mobile command RV as soon as Olga can get it up there but I want you to go by helicopter. We'll be sending every available fratello into action.

"Jean; you'll be in charge but don't keep Rico out of the action, she's too valuable in the field. If you're stuck running things at forward HQ send her out with another team.

"Priscilla; set up a high speed link with forward HQ and start decoding every Padania transmission from anywhere in the world. Priority goes to anything intercepted by the field teams but don't let other messages sit around, even if they seem low-priority. Anything could be important.

"The choppers on hand can only carry half our teams so split our force in two. Giuseppe, I want you in charge of the mobilization for the second force...co-ordinate with your brother about who's on the first & second wave. _Buona fortuna_ everyone."

With a nod, Chief Lorenzo signaled he was done talking. Before he left the leader of Section Two paused to address Genco. "It was a tough break, Ribisi...mistakes happen. I need you to put it behind you though. There's a job to do and I need every member of this team focused on the job, not past mistakes, _capito_?"

"Yes sir" Genco replied, forcing an affirmative smile onto his dour face.

"Good," Lorenzo told him, "providence willing we're all going to remember these next few days as a success, not a failure."


	2. Chapter 2

**By Kiskaloo**

**SOCIAL WELFARE AGENCY COMPLEX**

**SPRING**

"_Buona fortuna_ _a tutti_," Director Lorenzo stated, indicating the briefing was at an end. The assembled handlers rose and started for the doors.

Michele and Yarow walked together to the Cyborg Warehouse and up the steps to the third floor corner room where their respective cyborgs shared a room.

Michele knocked on the door and heard Gattonero bid him entrance. Both handlers entered to find Gattonero reading on her bed and Kara working on her MacBook Pro at the desk.

"We have a mission, ladies," Michele stated. "The Princess and Duracell flushed a couple score of Padania operatives out of a house near Merano in South Tyrol. They've gone to ground, but the 7th Carabinieri Regiment at Laives is securing the major roads while elements from the Alpine Troops Command of the _Esercito Italiano_ have deployed from their bases into the mountains."

"How soon do we go?" Gattonero asked.

"We have choppers on the way," Yarrow replied.

Michele examined Kara, currently dressed in a blue pleated miniskirt and white sweater with dress boots. He opened her wardrobe and removed a rucksack, which he tossed on her bed.

"We'll be in the mountains, so swap your dress boots for these," Michele ordered, handing Kara a pair of heavy leather knee boots. He then added her Prada lace-up sneakers and Bundeswehr combat boots, followed by two pairs of jeans, a half-dozen t-shirts, her wooley-pulley sweater, a denim jacket and, to her embarrassment, a stack of underwear.

"For weapons, bring your XM8 with the compact carbine and sharpshooter components along with your P2000SK and four magazines for each. Meet me out front of the Handler's Annex in five minutes," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Kara responded and started rapidly packing.

Inside the Handler's Annex, Michele reached the door to his room and opened it as he knocked. As the door swung open, he saw Claes lying on her stomach on his bed, reading a cookbook.

"Sorry to barge in, but Kara and I have to head to Bolzano for a mission right now," Michele noted. When he'd first been assigned to this room, he entered to find Claes on the bed, reading a book. A somewhat heated exchange led to his discovery that Claes had been using it as her personal library for a number of months so he granted her continued access.

"You're referring to Triela's mission?" Claes asked, recalling her roommate telling her she was going to attack a Padania safe house near the border with Austria.

"There were some…complications…so additional resources are being put into play to support the team," Michele replied as he laid out outfits on the end of the bed, Claes moving her legs to give him space. He quickly packed and removed his own P2000SK from a safe.

"Hold the fort while I'm gone," Michele said and closed the door behind him.

As he pushed his way through the front doors, he saw Kara standing at the foot of the stairs, her rucksack in one hand and her weapons case in the other. As they jogged to the Administration Building they heard the deep _whup-whup-whup_ of an _Esercito Italiano_ Boeing Chinook transport helicopter approaching from the 1° Army Aviation Regiment base at Viterbo.

Michele and Kara entered the building and followed the other _fratelli_ who would be going with the initial team under Jean Croce towards the roof helipad. Everyone stood behind the door as the military rotorcraft flared and settled down onto its gear. The rear ramp dropped and Jean ordered the teams forward.

With Michele's hand on her shoulder, Kara clomped up the ramp and into the fuselage past the two loadmasters. Along the left, a row of red canvas bench seats stretched to the front. A second set on the right had been mostly retracted against the fuselage wall, leaving space for the _fratelli_ to place their luggage and the equipment trunks necessary to establish a command center at Bolzano.

Kara plopped down in one of the seats and Michele stood over her, helping her strap in. He handed her a heavy helmet with visor and microphone boom and helped her settle it properly on her head and plug everything in.

"You've done this before I see," one of the loadmasters said with a smile.

"I've logged many an hour," Michele replied. He settled into the seat next to Kara and prepared for departure as the loadmasters strapped the other _fratelli_ members in and arranged their luggage. Once everything was secure, the ramp was raised and the pilots applied power and Kara felt the helicopter lift off.

**ABOARD MM81386**

**ON FINAL APPROACH TO LANDING ZONE**

Kara's love of flying had been seriously tested during the past two hours board the Chinook CH-47C Plus. The canvas seat offered little support and even less insulation from the vibration Kara was sure was being transferred from the Lycoming T55-L-412E engines through the fuselage walls and floor directly into her spine. Even with the ramp and doors closed, the noise was intense and she now understood why the helmets had integrated earphones. And to her surprise and consternation, her handler had closed his eyes moments after liftoff from Alpha's pavilion and slept right up until the announcement they were five minutes out.

The chopper landed with a hard shock and the rear ramp dropped, revealing green hillside. The Agency personnel grabbed their gear and stepped out from under the spinning rear rotor. The loadmasters completed offloading the trunks and the chopper lifted off and headed back to base. With the cyborg strength, it was quick work to move everything to the two-story chalet.

"Very…rustic…" she added out-loud as she took in all of the handcrafted log furniture.

Jean ordered everyone to assemble in the main living area and started his on-site briefing.

"The mobile command center RV should be here by evening. We'll have a satellite uplink as well as a radio mast for our two-way TETRA radios. We've also secured a UAV to help locate targets.

"This chalet will be our base of operations. Remote teams will be responsible for their lodging and provisioning…"

"Please tell me we're a remote team," Kara whispered into Michele's ear. Her handler nodded and Kara's face lit up.

Jean droned on for another twenty minutes and then released everyone.

Kara followed Michele out onto the back deck.

"We've been assigned to search the surrounding _comunes_ and _frazione_," Michele replied.

"Even though you packed my sneakers, I assume we're not going to be walking," Kara noted.

"COMALP is sending up a truck to take us to Bolzano Airport where we'll pick up a car," Michele replied, using the acronym for the Alpine Troops Command.

"Do we know who we're looking for?" Kara asked.

"They're working on it," Michele replied.

Still feeling very guilty and very responsible, Genco Ribisi was working hard to put together the best intelligence docket he could, using the dossiers on the terrorists killed by Triela and Marisa to try and generate a list of possible suspects for the _fratelli_ to hunt.

They heard the rumble of a diesel engine and saw a VTLM _Lince _light multirole vehicle motoring up the road.

"That must be our ride," Michele announced and the two of them went inside. Kara grabbed their gear and headed for the front door while Michele checked in with Jean.

"_Buon pomeriggio, signorina_!" a young solider with the shoulder epaulettes of a First Corporal and the collar insignia of Logistics greeted Kara. "I'm looking for a Colonel Pagani."

"Present!" Michele stated as he appeared at the door, causing the First Corporal to immediately snap to attention. Michele his Ministry of Defense identification card and the corporal directed a soldier to load their charge's gear in the back while Michele and Kara took the back seats.

They drove down into the city of Bolzano and to the airport and dropped off at the car rental area. Kara was not impressed with the selection and she concurred with Michele's choice of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta over the Peugeot 508. Once they had the car, they proceeded to the Hotel Greif and a suite overlooking the Piazza Walther through large windows.

"So if we don't know who we're looking for, how do we find them?" Kara asked as she checked her weapons.

"Still thinking about that," Michele admitted.

"Suggestion?" Kara offered.

"Shoot," Michele accepted.

"Funny you should use that word…"

**PIAZZA WALTHER VON DER VOGELWELDE**

**BOLZANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY**

Kara positioned herself in front of the stone statue of the German minstrel-poet while Michele focused the Canon EOS-1D C Cinema EOS DSLR. When he nodded, Kara started to pose as Michele fired off shot after shot. As Kara walked to the Bolzano Cathedral, Michele switched the camera to video mode and shot footage of her walking. Over the next hour, Michele shot video and still images of Kara around the piazza.

A few months prior, the Agency had been tasked to follow a Padania High Value Target who was meeting a known weapons dealer. While their mutual paranoia required them to meet in a public area, they chose a location that made it impossible to view from the surrounding buildings. They'd also chosen an area with significant pedestrian and no vehicular traffic that prevented use of a surveillance van and limited the effectiveness of using a food or trinkets cart with a hidden camera.

Alessandro Ricci had put forward the idea of doing a "photo shoot" with Petrushka and Kara in the role of models. This allowed them to get close enough to the subjects to surreptitiously film them together discussing a deal, which allowed law enforcement to pursue their criminal case against the HVT.

Michele and Kara spent the rest of the day shooting stills and film of the city, using a wide-angle lens to collect as much visual data as possible. Once they returned to the hotel, they downloaded the data to a portable HDD and drove back to the field headquarters so Ferro and Priscilla could run it through a powerful computer workstation equipped with facial-recognition software.

**FIELD HEADQUARTERS - SPECIAL OPERATIONS, SECTION 2**

**NEAR MERANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY**

"We've got a hit," Priscilla reported. On a large TV screen, a video of Kara walking in front of an Omega watch store next to an arch holding up the building atop it was paused and a flashing yellow square floated over the head of someone in the crowd.

She called up the results of the facial recognition software and a scowling visage appeared.

"Dorino Taruffi," she read off the screen. "A low-level lieutenant in Padania. Age 32. Born in Sondrio. Believed to be more a support man than an operative."

"That's right on the border with Switzerland and the Alps," Jean noted.

"Which would make him familiar with mountain operations," Alpha added.

"Where was he discovered?" Jean asked.

"The Piazza del Municipio. Looks like he was leaving a bar on the Via dei Bottai," Priscilla replied. They ran the tape and watched Taruffi head up the street and disappear into the crowd.

She typed in some search commands.

"There's a small hotel up the street," she reported.

"Contact Pagani," Jean ordered.

**GASTHOF WINKELHOCK**

**BOLZANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY**

Michele and Kara walked up the Via dei Bottai hand-in-hand. Dusk had fallen and streetlamps cast pools of illumination on the cobblestone streets and stucco walls. Both had donned jackets for the evening - leather for Michele and denim for Kara. There were a number of restaurants in the area so the streets echoed with the sounds of people enjoying a night out and the Pagani _fratello_ were just one more couple doing the same. While they had no confirmation that Taruffi or any of his known associates were staying at the hotel, they had nothing else to go on.

"_Wie ist Ihr Deutsch?_" Michele asked as he examined the restaurant menu posted on the outside.

"_Passierbar_…" Kara replied.

Michele nodded and opened the door for his cyborg.

"_Guten Abend!_" a middle-aged German man greeted. Michele's German, while rusty from disuse, proved sufficient to secure a table in the restaurant with a view of the street. They settled in and Kara let Michele handling the ordering. As they ate, they kept their eyes mostly focused through the large windows onto the street outside, watching the people walking by.

Kara froze, her schnitzel halfway to her mouth.

"Who is it?" Michele whispered, knowing Kara could hear him.

"Bandini," she mouthed back.

"Piero Bandini?" Michele whispered and Kara nodded her head, confirming she'd seen a member of one the major 'Ndrangheta_ cosche_, or families, in Milan. That he was 200 kilometers northeast of his enclave in the Milan _comune_ of Buccinasco…

"Follow him," Michele ordered and Kara leapt from the table and headed outside. Michele reached for his wallet with one hand and his iPhone with the other.

Kara exited the _gastof_ and immediately went into "gawker tourist mode", staring at the various large shop windows and using the reflection to track her mark, a technique taught to her by Alessandro Ricci early in her career with the Agency. She used her iPhone camera to surreptitiously take pictures of her target as well as to text Michele on her progress in following Bandini up the Via dei Bottia past the Museo Scienze Naturali Alto Aldige at the intersection with the Via Vintier.

At this point, she started to get worried as they were leaving the city center and entering the suburbs – a place of little to no interest to a Japanese tourist on a shopping trip. Bandini rounded the corner and Kara continued north through the intersection and then hugging the shadow of the wall. She watched Bandini step into a small four-story _gasthaus_ and scurried across into the car park across the way. She waited until a light went on the fourth floor and Kara hoped it wasn't just a coincidence, but instead identification of Bandini's room.

Within ten minutes Michele appeared.

"I believe he's in the third floor right corner," Kara reported.

"Jean wants him alive," Michele replied. "Ditto if Taruffi is with him."

"And if there are others?" Kara asked.

"If you don't recognize them as targets of value, eliminate them," Michele ordered and Kara nodded.

A large tree grew to the side of hotel and there were wooden rails to keep the branches away from the windows. Kara divested herself of her jacket and sweater, sprinted across the street, and started clambering up the trunk, using the rails as leverage to reach the third floor window, which was cracked open for fresh air.

With a silent thanks to good karma, Kara braced herself on the railing, hoping it held her weight and slowly raised the window with both hands, trying to keep it from squeaking. She slowly moved inside and allowed her eyes to adjust to the sliver of light leaking through the underside of the closed door. As they did, she found herself in a small bathroom. Placing her ear to the door, she heard only a single voice, but she knew that didn't mean there were only two people present. Based on the one-sided speech pattern, she assumed he was on the phone so she held her position until the talking ended.

With no floor plan to go by, she guessed it would be a single main room with beds and chairs. Deciding surprise was the best course of action, she removed her pistol from the waistband and attached the sound suppressor. Even with the suppressor and subsonic ammunition, Kara preferred not to use the weapon and hoped its mere presence would give her time to subdue the subjects in a quieter manner.

Kara slowly turned the knob and yanked the door inwards as she rushed out into the main room. In a second, her eyes took in and memorized the entire room – another trick taught to her by the senior Ricci. The room contained a single large bed, a table with two chairs under the window and a wardrobe. On the bed closest to her sat Bandini, who registered only a moment of surprise before grabbing the mobile phone off the bed and lunging for the nightstand drawer next to the bed.

Kara rushed across and slammed into him, knocking him backwards onto the bed. She used her greater strength to successfully grapple him, slamming her forehead into Bandini's with enough force to knock him out. She removed her own mobile and texted Michele to meet her by the side of the hotel. She used the bed sheets to create an improvised hammock and rope to lower Bandini's unconscious form down to the ground. She then quickly reset the room as if nobody had been in it and exited out into the hallway and out into the street.

Behind the hotel was a construction site and Kara carried Bandini inside. She left him with Michele inside a tool shed and sprinted the half kilometer back to the Hotel Greif to get the Giulietta.

"We should have gotten the 508," Kara noted as Michele stuffed Bandini through the back hatch onto the folded rear seats. He then set himself in the front passenger seat and Kara drove off towards Merano.


	3. Chapter 3

**By Boomer Gonzolez**

Forty-eight hours had passed since his last debriefing as Alpha Lautani lay across the futon that became a veritable cornerstone in his living quarters. Under normal circumstances he would give himself a day or two of absolute quiet to allow the previous assignment to drain from his mind. However; his ear was always at the service of one so close yet so far away.

"So how is Pakistan treating you?" Alpha asked his beloved as he held his mobile to his ear.

"It is cold and windy; just as it at this time last year," Liesel answered with a hint of a sarcastic edge. "However; Altheus seems to enjoy it."

"Altheus just likes to be in the thick of things."

"Very true; but it pleases him all the same."

"I wish I could be there with you two."

"As do I, but the fates seem to not have willed it so. Perhaps they have need of you elsewhere."

"Jean certainly seems to think so."

"True; though down time is a rare luxury for the three of us; it seems to be increasingly that way for you."

"Kiddo," Altheus called in the background. "It's go time."

"Stay safe Leisel," Alpha stated as worry tugged at his soul.

"You as well," Liesel answered.

"…I miss you."

"And I you; may the heavens here my hopes in that I may put this business behind me and be with you once more."

"Then may my hopes sing with yours so that they may hear them all the brighter."

As Liesel ended the call on her end, Alpha did the same soon after and held his mobile to his chest. Looking at his ceiling he wondered if she was doing the same; taking a brief minute to push the emotion from her mind in order to enter that place where action and emotion separate completely. Trying his best to relax; any attempt at such wavered as his thoughts kept wandering to the one he came to know as his beloved and her mentor whom he had come to know as a dear friend. Together on a separate covert assignment in parts unknown; the subtle caretaker within his psyche couldn't help but to worry on their health and especially, their safety.

Rolling to his side; Alpha reached for the remote hoping to find a distracting form of entertainment as he did not desire to leave his residence at the moment. No sooner had he lifted his palm; Alpha's mobile rang with a tone that resonated urgency. Quickly answering the call; Alpha found the voice on the other end was one that carried a consistent tendency to grate on his ears.

"Lautani," Jean stated in command.  
"Yes; Jean," Alpha answered. "Is there anything wrong with my report?"

"We have an emergency?"

"What kind of emergency?" Alpha said as he stood up.

"I need your expert knowledge on the Alps, and more specifically; the Dolomites."

"What makes you think I have experience on the Dolomites?"

"Well; you _are_ a Swiss citizen and a consigned member of the Swiss Militia, are you not?"

"And the Dolomites are where again?"

"…In Italy…"

Pulling his mobile away from his ear; Alpha sighed as he rubed his forehead in frustration before bringing the mobile back to his ear.

"I might still be able to help you," Alpha answered, "but my knowledge might be a bit fuzzy. It's been awhile since I've had to sneak anything over the Austrian border."

"…Since when?" Jean asked in alarm.

"That's ancient history," Alpha answered quickly. "Just tell me how soon I need to be _in class_?"

"Never mind that; we're coming to you."

With that Jean canceled the call on his end. Looking to his mobile in curiosity; Alpha's attention was then turned to his third floor panoramic window and the incoming sight of a CH-47 on approach.

"Hmph," Alpha grunted before reaching underneath his futon to grab his go bag. Scooping up his PDA in transit, Alpha quickly climbed the stairs that led to his roof.

**By Officer Charon**

The spring breeze played lightly through the collections of brightly-colored tourist-attracting kitsch that dotted around the area of Bolzano's Piazza Walther von der Vogelweide, also known as the Waltherplatz. The scarred man scrubbed a hand through his close-cropped military-style haircut, unable to stop himself from looking at the various stalls, noting with bemusement the half-and-half approach to writing.

"I never knew about this place," he commented to his associate, slightly taller than him, with coffee-colored skin. "It makes me think of Alsace, in France."

His partner cocked his head for a second, before nodding slightly. "Possibly so… the two were both concessions from the Great War from Germany. I do know that this is where some of the best skiing in Italy can be found. Sometimes, you can even make it here through the mass of tourists."

Chuckling dryly, the paler of the pair pulled out a digital camera and started taking pictures. Ostensibly, he was shooting the impressive fountain in the center of the piazza, with its marble statue of the piazza's namesake, or the Dominican church's Gothic architecture, but what he was actually shooting was a group of men sitting at a café, sipping at overpriced coffee and holding a surprisingly unanimated conversation.

Whilst snapping pictures, he commented from the corner of his mouth. "The team really needs a woman or two… this is a little… awkward with another man, I think. I could make like I was taking her picture, too."

Nihad cocked an eyebrow. "What, am I not good enough for you?" He struck an overly-theatric pose, resulting in a snort.

"Yes, well… not that you're not decorative and everything, but I should like to look at something more of a redhead… and a woman." More pictures – someone just received a phone call, and he wasn't looking pleased.

"Tsk tsk… John, one shouldn't be so picky." Nihad held up his Frommer's guide and turned in a slow circle, making as though he was looking at the architecture around the square as well. "Doesn't look like they placed any other lookouts besides the three we made already."

"Mm-hmm… hang about." John's tone instantly changed, bringing Nihad's attention back towards the cafe in a deceptively unhurried fashion. "Something's just lit a fire under these guys. I think we're still good, but they're [bugging out] in a hurry." A cry from the café as the group left. "[Ayup,] they left without paying the bill. Not normal for Padans."

Nihad's cell phone chose that moment to make it's usual generic-sounding ring. He flipped it open with a curious "Pronto?" After a few moments, his eyes widened, and he made writing motions to John, who whipped out a notepad and pen and handed it to the Somalian ex-pat, who began to hurriedly scribble notes. He also tore out a page with a hurried message on it. "CALL THE TEAMS, SAFE HOUSE, NOW" underlined three times. John's eyebrows shot up, but he nodded his head, pulled out his own cell phone, and began dialing the first of several numbers.

* * *

"Okay, that's all of us from the area," Amadeo said, grumbling. "I hope there's a good reason that we all just got yanked from a week's worth of intel-gathering?" He motioned with his arm to the five other men sitting or standing around the house's living room."

Nihad and John both nodded –John having been filled in on the way over, and looking appropriately grave. "Here's the situation, as relayed to me by Lt. Croce. Someone in Intel dropped the ball, and two cyborgs were sent in to the South Tyrol to handle what was thought to be five, but turned out to be 50 Padans." A low whistle from Carlos and Massimo, while Paulo and Fausto managed to keep their faces stilled, albeit hardened. Filippo, of course, had no expression underneath his thick brows. "No casualties on our side, seven on theirs, but 43 are still out there. The Carabinieri and Army have been rolled out to blockade the obvious routes out of here – there's air elements involved too, from what I understand. But for right now, we're it in the immediate area, aside from the Hilshire-Triela and Alboreto-Marisa fratelli."

John couldn't keep a wince off of his face. Amadeo nodded his head. "So we've got until everyone starts trickling in to try and get ANY sort of intel on these targets before they ghost into the woods or the population. Do we even have any pictures to go with?"

Nihad shook his head. "The first the girls knew of the gaffe was when they were getting shot at. We have a handful that they saw leaving – which basically amounts to a vague description fitting almost anyone – but the rest are a mystery so far.

John spoke up. "It would seem to me that they would try and make contact with the local cell, maybe? I know that they are sometimes… uhm… [compartmentalized]…. Uhm… split up? For security purposes, I mean. But perhaps someone higher up can direct them to elements in the area, knowing that they needed assistance to escape? So perhaps we should start with the group we have already been watching? After all, _someone_ had them moving quickly earlier."

Amadeo nodded. "It's better than nothing. Let's start with that and see what we can shake loose." Fausto chuckled darkly, and cracked the knuckles of his ham-like hands.

* * *

Giorgio clung onto the handle set above the passenger seat of the car, cursing up a storm as the blacked-out Lancia finally cleared the A90 ring road around Rome to hit the E35. It was bad enough that they were in Rome when the All-Call came for South Tyrol (Of all places! Honestly! ), but it had taken far too long for those team members not already on assignment to meet at the SWA's Rome headquarters, grab their Go-bags, and leave in whichever of the pool cars were already gassed up and available. They were also part of a general rush of personnel that flew out of the facility as abruptly as possible, mostly in cars, but with the handful of helicopters that they could muster being crammed to the gills with as many fratelli and staff as possible.

Not that the distinctly unprofessional gaggle truly needed to draw that much attention to themselves… even stepping on it as Moro was doing, it was going to take the ground vehicles at least 5 hours and change to make the 650 kilometer drive to Bolzano. And that was assuming ideal traffic conditions.

At least Ferro had managed to pave their way up the highways and toll booths, passing on instructions to the various agencies overseeing their routes that they Were Not To Be Touched. Which is just as well, seeing as how they were hitting 200 kph, easily. Moro always did have a desire to be a rally driver.

As it was, Giorgio could only sit back, review maps of the area, and try and come up with a vague battle plan. Amadeo's surveillance team would be feeding him updates as they got them, hopefully enough to get the team working together on several ops. He had a nasty suspicion, however, that they would end up scattered to the winds, chasing ghosts.

Part of him cursed the fratelli for cocking up the original op, before he banished the thought as unfair. He may not like what the fratelli represented, but he had to admit that the intel was bad, and there was nothing they could have done about that.

Muttering occasional sotto voce imprecations, he continued to study the maps and make notes, even as the scenery flashed by too fast to note. Behind him, the two other troopers were snoring. Giorgio made a special mention of them in his muttered profanity – lucky bastardi.

* * *

Nihad and Filippo were watching two different windows through their respective scopes. Nihad had already singled out this house as a probable Padan safe house earlier in the week, a few days after their original operation started. Set off the Via Fago in the north-eastern portion of Bolzano, it was completely non-descript, set back amongst the trees. Just a normal villa in a tourist town.

That was seeing a great deal of action right now. Nihad grimaced as Padans that they'd identified during their week of observation passed by windows repeatedly, never pausing for more than a few seconds. If he felt like rushing, he probably could have nabbed three at most. Unfortunately, that would have resulted in the rest slipping away.

"In position," came Amadeo's voice, low and professional. He probably had his knife out already, the blood-thirsty pirate, Nihad thought for a moment. Taking a moment to examine the surrounding area, he noted the absence of any civilian traffic. It would be interesting to find out how they managed THAT neat-

Filippo's Albanian accent cut harshly into his reverie. "Movement from the northeast. Looks like 3… make that 4 males. They look… worn out." He gave a small chuckle, then focused on his spotting scope. "Distance 300 meters and falling. Wind: none. Trees will obstruct you in 200 meters. One of them is a definite HVT – Luccio Valeri. Known for moving weapons."

Nihad was always impressed at Filippo's encyclopedic knowledge of High Value Targets – the man had a photographic memory. That, combined with complete calmness under pressure, made him an ideal spotter for him.

Amadeo gave a double-tap of his microphone – they were close enough that any voice might have given away the position of the four SRT troopers flanking the building.

Nihad spoke softly, training his rifle's scope on the men who approached the building, looks of relief on their faces. "I shouldn't have to say this, but we need these men alive. We have no intel to go on, and the fratelli are going to need targets to hit. John, Fausto… try not to crush them TOO badly."

Double-clicks. Somehow, John managed to make his sound forlorn – the man took entirely too much pleasure in inflicting pain on the quasi-terrorists that they intercepted.

Movement from the target building: the side door facing the car port opened, and a pair of sharp-eyed Padans emerged, one carrying a Beretta Model 12 submachine gun, the other wielding a Benelli shotgun at the low ready. Looking into what little of the door he could see, Nihad could make out 2 more inside.

"We have at least 8 already. Recommend assault before they can join up." A double click, followed by a metronomic triple tap. On the third tap, the bushes adjacent to the building exploded, with John and Fausto jumping out of the concealing foliage to bum-rush the guarding Padans. With a swift burst of movement, the guards were slammed back against the building, their weapons thrown away from them – John retained the shotgun, using it's butt to knock the terrorist out. Amadeo and Massimo sprinted in through the newly-cleared doorway, sweeping in to subdue the pair waiting inside the room.

Outside, John and Fausto turned their weapons and savage grins on the shocked runners who had halted a mere 10 meters from the house. "On the ground, swine! Before I get impatient!" Fausto shouted clearly, and John cackled raucously, Benelli at the ready.

Screeching tires showed that Paulo and Carlos had arrived with the Mercedes Sprinter van. The four would-be escapees were hurriedly zip-cuffed, then thrown inside the van. A pair of cracks from a nearby rooftop caused everyone to take what cover they could. "Two were holing up upstairs. I think that's all, but sweep and clear."

"Got it," answered Amadeo. He, Carlos, John and Massimo made a quick pass through the house, scooping up papers, phones and laptops as they went. By the time they gathered everything and left the area, the command post was supposed to be being set up – the command staff having hurriedly flown in via Chinooks attached from the Esercito Italiano. After ensuring that the only thing that was left were casings, they tossed the bodies of the dead Padans in atop their zip-cuffed compatriots. Ignoring the screams, curses, and protests, they jumped aboard, boxed up the captured intel, and cleared the area. Amadeo wasn't worried about Nihad and Filippo – they would doubtless beat the van back to their own safe house.


	4. Chapter 4

**Part Time Believer**

**By Alfisti**

"Next time we follow the _Hong Kong_ lead instead of London."

Jethro Blacker looked up from where he was wiping the last film of methylated spirits from the rear window of a white A5 sportback, to study the girl standing on the other side of the car.

"You mean whichever lead would put us distant enough tobe not worth calling," he stated, being met by a nod of confirmation from his cyborg. To be fair, the timing _was _inconvenient, but then again, there was rarely a time which _would_ be convenient.

Giving the glass one last polish, the handler stood back to admire his handiwork. "What do you think Monty?"

'Monty' leaned over the high boot lip to get a closer look. Fortunately the glass ended quite near the tail and her slender, five-foot, four-inch frame, aided by two inch heels, was sufficient for the task. Even to her keen eye, the rear screen was completely clear, all trace of the rental company's sticker removed.

"Looks good to me; we'll just have to remember to reattach it before handing this back to _Europcar_."

"You've paid for fuel?"

"Yes."

Throwing the paper towel and remaining solvent he had been using in the service station bin, Jethro started to make his way around the vehicle. Two steps later however he stopped, before turning back toward the British registered Audi's driver's door. Unlike the fratello's regular means of transport, this car had its steering wheel on the right and proper side. Settling in behind the familiar, albeit reversed, controls he started the engine, selected drive and pulled smoothly out into the small village's main street. Crawling to the edge of town, the Englishman pressed his foot further to the floor, letting the diesel's torque draw them along the thin string of rough tarmac, deeper into the Italian Alps.

As the road cut back on itself, his girl glanced out the window, taking in the steep, wide roofs of the village they'd just left below. "It's more like being back in Switzerland than a post card of Italy."

"How do you know it's Italy looking like Switzerland and not the Swiss been copying the Italians?"

Monty opened her mouth to reply, then shut it again as nothing presented itself as a suitable retort. Instead she chose to change the subject. "Seeing as it was Rome who dropped the ball, it would be nice if they'd pick it back up again and let us know whom we're chasing."

"Now where would be the fun in that?"

"'Fun' is not precisely the word I'd use describe this particular haystack search," the girl gestured out the window at the village now dropping away far below them. "Any one of these could foster a Padania bolthole, and we don't know what the metaphorical needle in this case even _looks_ like."

Removing one hand from the wheel, Jethro reached across to give her thigh a quick, reassuring squeeze. "I'm sure we can find some way to narrow down the field."

The Audi slunk on, low silhouette losing itself amongst thawing alpine meadows. Green and lush during summer, their grasses were now coated in a fast melting mass of ice, running in treacherous rivulets across the winding asphalt. High above, towering peaks gave some inkling of how stunning fields must have looked in the depths of winter. However, even with a full snow layer, this area was too remote for tourists on their way to the larger, more fashionable resorts of Cortina d'Ampezzo, Campitello, or even over the Stelvio Pass to Switzerland's offerings in the west, to be concerned with.

When the call to assemble arrived, it had been a tired and unimpressed Monty who fielded her handler's phone, sharp ears picking up the ringtone before it grew loud enough to wake the dozing man. Not that her actions had done him much good, and a message to the hotel concierge later they had been roaring toward Dover, intent on catching the next ferry crossing to Calais.

That had been over fourteen hours ago.

Negotiating another first-gear bend, Jethro glanced at his partner. "Keep an eye out for somewhere with a hotel or a B&B. They're that rare up here…"

"…that they'd be as good of a starting point as any," finished the girl for him.

Now a second tiny village rolled past, little more than a cluster of houses clinging to steep slopes. Being this far off the tourist trail meant little industry existed beyond that related to the land, with an associated scarcity of places for travellers to stay.

Climbing out of farmland briefly, the road snaked around a densely forested spur, before dropping off sharply into the small valley beyond. At its head nestled a cluster of lights, forming a minute patch of warmth against deep early morning shadows.

Reaching behind her handler's seat, Monty extracted a brown leather case which had been resting on the floor, and used the expensive binoculars within to get a better view. While not in any way large, the town was still the most substantial settlement they'd yet encountered, sharing the low-set architecture and steep streets of its brethren, which tailed off into fields as the land flattened out. At its summit stood a stone church, of an age which still warranted a proper steeple, overlooking a terraced graveyard.

A glint of light suddenly snapped her attention its peak, but then the moment was gone, the girl relaxing as the tower's perfectly polished bell again caught the first rays of morning sun, flicking them briefly her way.

Taking a moment to give the lookout another once-over for good measure, she lowered the binoculars. "Seems hopeful."

Their single-lane road hugged the tree line until evergreen conifers were replaced by stone, wood and render, the hum of tyres on tarmac giving way to rumbling cobbled streets, still lightly trafficked at this early hour. Less than a minute saw the fratello to a small paved area which was probably the town square, in that it was faced on three sides by shops, eateries and a post office with a dry fountain in the middle. The fourth side was defined by the low top of a stone retaining wall, underlining an amazing view out across roofs below and over the valley beyond. Two or three storey buildings were the order of the day, providing accommodation for the store owners above their businesses; each painted with gay, medieval frescoes depicting scenes of anything from heroes and dragons to life on the land. For all the attempt at vibrancy however, in the cool morning light the pictures remained dull and lifeless, an impression deepened by thick wood shutters still closed against the cold.

Pulling up in front of the post office, Jethro stepped out of the car, before opening the rear door to retrieve a heavy camel driving coat which he slipped on over his grey suit, lending the otherwise monochrome scene an edge of warmth. Pulling out the other coat laid across the back seat he held it out to his partner, who quickly took the proffered garment. Despite being under-layered by a thick charcoal skivvy and pair of leggings, her short dress helped little to keep out the chill, quite aside from not exactly being her first choice in travel wear.

Pressing a palm lightly into the small of her back, her handler guided his girl to a pin board attached to the post-office wall, under a sign reading _"Informazioni al Publicco"_. To the cork was attached a faded map of the region, though the village in which they now stood didn't even warrant a "you are here", and a list of emergency contacts, along with the usual detritus of a public notice board: tractor for sale, puppies to give away, school fete...

A waft of breeze rustled the paper and Monty brushed aside a hand-scrawled ad for dog walking to reveal what she was looking for.

"How about this?"

Pinching the bridge of his nose to ease tired eyes, Jethro twisted slightly to see what his partner was gesturing at, "Worth a shot, there's one here too for a hotel, looks like someone's even been kind enough to draw a mud-map on it."

Extracting her phone from an inside pocket, his cyborg snapped a quick photo of the scribbled town layout for later use and pocketed the contraption again. Apple may have generously provided her a direct link to Google maps, but there was no need to power up the GPS if it could be avoided.

* * *

The bed and breakfast to which the first ad directed them turned out to be more akin to a farm-stay, just on the edge of the village. Its ancient house, stonework haphazardly patched with brick and render, and flanked by two wings of long, single-storey sheds looked in on a central gravel drive, presiding over the lower-set buildings with an air of solidarity and permanence.

It also turned out to be closed.

Returning to his seat, Jethro shut the car door quickly and rubbed his hands together in front of heater vent, warmed by the A5's still idling engine.

"I'm going to hazard a guess and say the owners have shot through between seasons."

Monty slowly nodded her agreement, but her face remained impassive. "Sounds plausible. However, since we're here…"

"I'll wait in the car."

Slipping a hand under her seat, the girl extracted a slender leather wallet and hitched up her dress so as to fold it over the waistband of her leggings. From the same hiding space came a small, black pistol which had also been wedged up under the cushion, along with a similarly toned metal tube. Screwing the silencer into the barrel, she then pulled back on the slide slightly to check her PPK had a round chambered and slipped out of the car.

Feeling her heels sink slightly into the gravel, the young agent moved quickly to the closest long, wooden shed, its rough hewn door secured by a large, brass padlock. Flicking on its safety before wedging her Walther securely in the top of one knee-high boot, Monty extracted the leather wallet again and opened it up to reveal a set of dull, blued-metal lock picks.

Having made short work of the ancient tumbler, the door creaked open on weathered hinges at her touch and, leaving her gun where it was for the moment, the girl stepped cautiously through. Inside the shed was dry, smelling of farmers years past, and dimly lit: dust motes floating in the few rays of low sun which fought their way past dirty windows. Giving her eyes a moment to adjust she took another step forward and to the side, moving her silhouette away from the open doorway.

Along the back wall stood rotting machinery, formed from the iron and steel of an earlier age, along with a slightly more modern tractor, recognisable as that which had been listed for sale in the village. With no replacement for it in sight, either the farming part of the business hadn't proven worth pursuing, or taking in guests wasn't making ends meet either.

Toward the far end were a few bags of horse oats, well beyond their use by date, though their accompanying chicken feed and fertiliser bags seemed fresher. Butted up against the wall was a neatly ordered and impeccably clean work bench, with a selection of well-used tools, but nothing to suggest someone had been in here recently.

Locking the door again behind herself, Monty checked on her handler then moved around behind the building. Beyond a low wall, fields rolled away across the valley and somewhere out of sight she could hear the sound of a motorbike, the tinny report of its engine at odds with the otherwise benignly rustic surrounds. Moving quickly to get back out of sight lest it appear nearby, she made her way to the house, which also proved vacant bar a collection of carefully modernised furnishings, disguised amongst rough wooden benches and copper cookware.

A small garden out back remained bare from the winter, but healthy looking chickens, in so far as the girl could tell, scratched away at the frosted ground, their feeders still part full and coop in good repair. The garden led handily onto the old horse stable on the opposite side of the drive, from which she soon re-emerged to return to the car.

Settling back into the passenger seat, she redeposited her lock picks under the chair before retrieving the PPK from her boot and starting to unscrew the suppressor. "Looks empty, and I'd say it has been for a couple of days, though someone's apparently been feeding their chooks... and there's signs of vehicles having been in the stable."

Jethro was about to make a reply when his cyborg suddenly held up a hand to silence him. "Someone's coming."

Quickly she stashed the now separated pistol and silencer, re-emerging just as a battered orange FIAT 128 crunched its way into the yard. As the flatulent report of its engine died away, the Blackers glanced at each other, then cautiously stepped out of their own car, Monty leaving her door open for fast access to her gun if required.

Emerging from the other vehicle was a man, probably in his early sixties if her guess was correct. For a moment there was silence and she took in the black clothing and stiff collar with a fleck of white at the front.

Jethro however beat her to the punch, "_Bongiorno_ father."

" Bongiorno," replied the priest. Tension broken, he gave a gentle smile and started to walk toward the pair. _"__Siete i benvenuti nella mia parrocchia, ma si capisce questo luogo è chiuso sì?"_

Rounding the back of the Audi to join her partner, the SWA cyborg kept her face blank as she waited for him to reply. Her handler in turn put on his best confused expression. "Eer... _parli Inglese?"_

Stopping in front of them, the Italian seemed to think for a moment. "Ehh... I say welcome, but is close, _sì?_"

"As we've just discovered, we were looking for somewhere to stay."

"_Inglese_? Well there Hotel Maria…"

"We saw the advertisement for that, but were hoping for something off the tourist trail. Is there anything else?"

"No…" Jethro glanced at his cyborg, who filed that away for later usage; seemed like they only had one more place to check, while the priest continued, "…Maria only. I Padre Caccia. You?"

"Jacob, Jacob Metcalf, and this…" the handler gently reached out to pull Monty in front of him, wrapping his arms around her so as to pull her back against his chest, "…is Lara, my niece."

Father Caccia took a moment to study the pair, before giving a small shrug and turning back to his car, "Well, Jacob, Lara, if follow, I take to Hotel Maria. Return, feed birds later."


	5. Chapter 5

**By Boomer Gonzolez**

After stepping into the waiting CH-47 from the ledge of his roof; Alpha took the first available seat discovering a second later that he had landed between Jean and Ferro. Looking across from him; Alpha spotted Michelle, who gave him a quick nod; and Kara, who gave him a soft smile along with a pinky greeting. Returning their greetings with a smile and a nod; Alpha then took a big breath before starting beginning.

"What do we know?" Alpha asked, looking at Jean and then Ferro.

After Ferro filled him in on the status of the current situation Jean continued, "So now in order to complete this assignment we need to hunt them down in a vastly populated area…"

"On the heels of the winter tourist season too," Alpha interrupted. "Have the roads and railways been locked down?"  
"All except the A22," Ferro answered.

"That's bad," Alpha responded in kind.

"You cannot just expect us to shut down the busiest highway into the area," Ferro retorted in frustration.

"I understand your concern Ferro, but if I'm not mistaken the A22 leads right into Austria connecting to the Brenner autobahn."

"Why should that concern us?" Jean asked.

"If you recall; Alto Aldige along with Trentino and the Austrian state of Tyrol form an autonomous Euroregion."

From across the cabin Michelle and Kara smiled, knowing exactly what Alpha was getting at marking a significant oversight on the part of Jean and Ferro.

"That stretch of border isn't exactly well guarded save in the instance of military encampments," Alpha continued. "Crossing into North Tyrol and perhaps even East Tyrol won't be much of an issue and especially so if they happen to be well versed in German. Your saving grace is that unless they manage to procure an ORV; it's a very rough twenty to forty mile hike to the nearest border crossing."

Quickly glancing up at each other; Jean and Ferro looked surprisingly alarmed.

"Were there any vehicles seen escaping from the site?" Alpha asked.

Looking to each other first once more; Jean looked away as Ferro nodded.

"Call it in," Jean stated as Ferro quickly dialed an extension on her mobile. Looking to Alpha again; Jean asked, "Is there anything else you want to recommend for those on foot?"

Pulling his PDA out of the duffel, Alpha quickly brought up Google Maps and the area of Alto Aldige.

"Taking the vehicles into account; the area to search has now gone from a potential five hundred square kilometers to possibly the entire seven thousand square kilometers. First station a team at Cortina d'Ampezzo. Whether on foot or wheels; should some of them head east and either to sneak into East Tyrol or back into Italy by way of Trentino; they will most likely pass through there. Should they abandon their vehicles; I can very well see them taking to ground and using the paths and trails."  
"Such as?"  
"You are going to want to station teams at Groden…"

"Where?"

"You might know it as Val Gardena. With additional teams stationed at Cortina del Vino and Campitello di Fassa."  
"Why?"

"The majority of trails and paths; whether by foot, road, or bridle pass through those three areas…" Jean said as he addressed members of both the 7th Carabinieri regiment and the 5th Alpine regiment along with those of Sections 1 and 2 who were sent ahead. "

With Jean practically reciting his recommendations word for word as if they had been his own instructions; Alpha took to searching the bodies of the fallen Padania members as they lay in the cargo trucks.

"Are you looking for something _boika_?" Olga asked as she approached her former ward.

Looking over at his former caretaker; Alpha smiled as he answered; "Yes; aside from a pair of size forty-three or forty-four boots; I wouldn't mind some kind of identification."

"Already searched; we found nothing on them but what you see."

"Damn; that would've really been useful."

"To see where they came from would give a thought to where the rest may be going no doubt, eh?"

"Always one step ahead."

"We just think alike, _boika_; us and the rest of the old guard. Although, I am alarmed that you would leave your home without any footwear to speak of"

"Well; Jean didn't exactly leave me much time to grab anything other than the last minute essentials."

"I see."

"Hmm…" Alpha said as he studied the sole of one Padania soldier's boot.

"What is that you have there?"

"I don't know; kind of feels like concrete though."

Looking to the chalet; Alpha and Olga looked to each other once before sharing a smirk.

Inside the chalet; Olga and Alpha went about banging on the doors and walls of the bottom floor hoping to find something that was overlooked. Eventually their search led them to the garage where they noticed an oddly placed tool chest. Taking a quick minute to move it; they smiled as they discovered a floor mounted release. Looking around, Olga discovered a broom with an uncharacteristic solid core stainless steel pole. Removing the rubber top revealed a matching floor key. With a simple turn; a panel of the floor sprung forward slightly.

"_Synsukiya_," Olga muttered.

"You said it," Alpha responded in kind.

Tossing the pole aside; Alpha and Olga both lifted the small entryway. Checking the corners for any remaining enemies; Olga was first to climb down after granting Alpha a stern eye.

After checking the rooms they found an armory, various supply areas, and an extra barracks quarters; all properly abandoned with a map detailing the connecting tunnels as escape points. Most disturbingly however was their discovery of a communications room where they discovered multiple data ports with cords still attached, but no laptops or other digital devices to be found.

"How did they pour all of this without being noticed?" Olga asked.

"They didn't, it was dug out."

"How?"

"Dolomite; it has enough limestone and calcium carbonate to be soft enough for something like this; also the high magnesium and zinc content would self reinforce the tunnels; provided that they remembered to leave the ceilings at an arch. It would've thrown off a thermal scan too; if they did one that is."

"They did not skimp on the details. I wondered how they could provide for so many in such a small space. Going directly from the garage to the house; aerial surveillance would have missed them completely."

"How many did Marisa and Triela say they encountered?" Alpha asked.

"The exact number is unclear, but they were certain that it was several dozen."

"That's…not good."

"No, not good at all; we need to tell Jean, now."

"Yeah; one thing's for sure."

"And what is that _dorogoi_?"

"He's going to have a shit when he sees this place."

"_Da_," Olga added with a hint of a giggle.

**By MP5**

For midday, the southern end of Via Bettega, which ran parallel to Lago di Molveno, was rather deserted, save for a lone Fiat Scudo van―and unbeknownst to its occupants, a Lancia Delta HF Integrale Evoluzione II was closing the gap between itself and the Fiat trundling down the road in front of it. Inside, its female driver spoke a message into her radio earpiece.

"Target identified; Green Fiat Scudo, I count five hostiles inside. I can close the gap and engage within fifteen seconds, over."

"Copy, Allison. No signs of incoming traffic. Mask on; you are cleared to engage, over." an Irish-accented male voice replied on the other end.

"Acknowledged, Brian. Moving in."

Pulling a balaclava down over her face, Allison pressed down further on the accelerator, and the tachometer needle raced towards 6500rpm, whereupon she clutched in and shifted into fourth. The Fiat Scudo she had locked onto was now looming larger in her windscreen, and she reached towards a panel on the center console and flicked open the safety cover on a toggle switch, which she then armed, as indicated by a glowing red LED. The firing button was immediately adjacent to the arming switch, but that would not be pressed until she had overtaken the Padania-carrying van in front of her and lined them up properly in her rearview mirror. She would have to do this fast, since speed was essential to the element of surprise and subsequent violence of action.

Allison took a quick glance around the interior of her car. In the front passenger's seat sat extra 'insurance' in the form of an HK416 10.5" carbine loaded with a 100-round drum magazine and equipped with a suppressor. In the map pocket of the driver's side door was her trusty Kimber, equipped with a threaded barrel and accompanying suppressor for this particular occasion. In an ideal world, the 'package' Q-branch had loaded into the device mounted on the back of her Lancia would be all she needed to accomplish her task. Of course, one could never be too sure, and this job had to be thorough.

Her prey loomed large in her windscreen now, her enhanced eyesight able to make out the reflection of her car in the cheap shiny Fiat badging. Shifting into fifth, she set the plan into motion.

The sudden honking of a car horn was all the warning the driver of the Fiat Scudo had before a red hatchback with tinted windows and local plates overtook them aggressively, crossing into the opposing lane to do so before swooping in front of them and accelerating away.

"Who the hell does this guy think he is, Fernando Alonso?" yelled the driver.

"Don't react, we're trying to be inconspicuous here, remember?" his front passenger chided.

As the driver was about to reply, the red hatchback in front of them braked momentarily before some kind of webbing―the driver thought it was some kind of fishing net―deployed from somewhere in its rear fascia. Taken by surprise, the Fiat's driver attempted to brake and swerve, but the van ran over the netting anyhow, and as soon as it disappeared under the front bumper, the front wheels suddenly locked up, and the occupants were all thrown forward into their seats as the van quickly slowed to a halt.

Back inside the Lancia, Allison saw that she had hit her mark, and as the van began decelerating rapidly, she yanked the handbrake and slid to a stop perpendicular to the road before practically punching a plastic arcade machine button located on the same center console panel as the arming switch she flicked earlier. Her passenger-side window then shook from the shockwave of an explosive blast as the high explosives-laced X-net she deployed destroyed the entire front end of the target vehicle and ripped some distance into the passenger cabin. Throwing her door open, Allison exited her Lancia and brought the HK416 from her passenger's seat to bear, flipping the fire selector into full automatic and began laying down extended bursts of fire, the full metal jacket rounds from her carbine ripping into the remainder of the Scudo's burning bodywork.

One of the rear doors slid open, and a bloodied Padania with a Skorpion managed to extricate himself from the blazing inferno to start shooting at Allison and her Lancia. However, the .32ACP rounds simply bounced off the up-armored Lancia, which had been coated in an experimental triple-layer ballistic polymer in addition to the lightweight armor paneling and bullet-resistant glass it already had installed. Allison waited until there was a lull in the firing of the machine pistol before popping up and hammering a burst into the Padanian with the remainder of the ammunition in the drum of her 416. As soon as he was down, Allison let the 416 dangle from her upper body with the sling as she drew her Kimber and approached the van, looking to mop up. Shots came from the passenger cabin again as an AKS-74U spat rounds at her through the remainder of the Scudo's windshield, past the slumped-over forms of the driver and front passenger. Noting that she could see through to the back of the vehicle, Allison realized that the rear 'barn doors' were open, the next likely location of her current opponent. Allison dashed to the side of the Scudo, ducked down to see the position of her enemy's feet, and then worked the trigger on her Kimber, sending rounds through the non-protective sheet metal of the side of the van. The Padania taking cover at the back fell to the ground, and Allison dropped to the pavement and sent two more rounds into the terrorist's face through the remaining ground clearance of the totaled Fiat.

"Allison, you have a runner." Brian's voice crackled into her earpiece.

Allison looked up towards the lake, where she saw one of the occupants of the van sprinting into the distance with a duffel bag around his body. Allison took aim, but was not sure if she could hit him with the last round in her magazine. Then, the fleeing Padania was taken off his feet, a massive hole blown through his chest before he crumpled to the grass, and Allison heard the report of a large caliber round.

"Thanks for the assist, Brian." Allison spoke into her mic.

"No problem. Go confirm those kills." Brian replied. Nearly 2 kilometers away from the ambush Allison had initiated, Brian lay prone on a hillside, smoke wafting from the muzzle brake of a Barrett XM500 he had brought to support Allison from a distance.

"_Copy Brian, I'll meet you at the southern shore of Lake Molveno. Out." _Allison replied in his ear. Brian removed the magazine and cleared the bullpup anti-materiel rifle before disassembling it to carry in a hard guitar case. Once his shooter's mat and rifle were packed up, Brian strode over to his Yamaha Virago 1100 and secured the guitar to the backrest of the pillion seat before donning his helmet, starting up his bike, and riding off.

Back at the site of the ambush, Allison worked quickly to secure the wallets that contained the identities of the Padania she had just eliminated, in addition to taking cash they would no longer need. With four driver's licenses in her pocket (and about €1500 in loose cash), she set about retrieving the identity of the fifth man who was running with the duffel bag. Securing the contents of his wallet, she paused as she looked at the duffel bag before going to open it.

"Let's see what was so important in here…"

Allison unzipped the duffel bag, and upon seeing what was inside, she pumped her fist in the air victoriously.

"Yesssss!"


	6. Chapter 6

**By TheScarredMan**

"Angelica," Marco said, "do you have to go to the bathroom?"

"I'm sorry." The little cyborg squirmed in her car seat. "I know we're in a hurry."

He swallowed his impatience. "Not really. We're ahead of schedule. I just don't want to be the last one to arrive."

He drove for a few minutes more down the old two-lane highway, little-used since the construction of the express road just to the east. It was all hill country and farmland, without a business or other public accommodation in sight. He'd almost given up on finding a place this side of Verona when a small roadside park appeared, just a hectare of grass and trees with a few tables and a swingset - and a restroom. The only other car in the six-place lot was a blue Renault sedan, unoccupied. He swung over and pulled in.

While Angie fussed with her seatbelt and her bag, he decided to get out and stretch his legs. The car door thunked shut just as the door to the restroom opened and a woman stepped out: a slender blonde dressed in boots, jeans, and a collared shirt under a denim jacket. Her eyes were invisible behind tinted glasses. She paused, studying the car and its driver. A woman alone on an empty road, Marco thought. Comes out to find a strange man standing a few steps from her car. No wonder she seems wary.

Then Angelica finally got out. "I'll be right back," she said, and hurried down the short path. The woman visibly relaxed upon seeing a child with the stranger.

"Take your time," he called. "And take your meds. You're about due."

"Okay." On her way into the bathroom, Angie brushed past the woman, who smiled at her in passing and shifted that smile to him. He returned it with a nod of understanding.

Then her regard sharpened. "…Marco? Marco Toni?" She tipped down her shades. Familiar blue eyes gazed at him over the rims.

"Caterina? My God." A rush of pleasant memories warmed him. He closed the distance between, and reached for her hands as she raised them.

"Your voice was familiar," she said, "but I didn't recognize you until you smiled."

"The glasses," he said. "And I've gained a few kilos. I don't start my day with a five-klick run anymore."

"What happened?"

"Accidental weapon discharge. Cost me about a third of my sight in my right eye - and my career with the State Police."

"How awful. What are you doing now?"

He raised his eyebrows. "I'm a social worker, can you believe it?" He glanced toward the restroom. "Taking care of kids, no less."

"Well, I'm sure Patricia's glad of that. Not that she'd ever see you hurt to make it happen, but she..." When his smile faltered, she said, "You're not together anymore?"

"No." He gave her hands a final squeeze and let go of them. "You haven't seen her lately, then."

"I haven't kept in touch with the old crowd at all, I'm afraid. I spend most of my time at the estate. I don't really oversee the vineyards - the workers know their jobs better than I do - but they're happier when the owner's in residence."

"What are you doing so far from Frascati, then?"

"Oh, just a little customer service. You?"

"A conference. Angie doesn't get out of the girls' dorm much, so I asked my supervisor to let me take her along."

She smiled. "That's sweet. I would never have figured you for a man who likes kids."

The cell phone at Caterina's hip burred. Without removing it, she turned its face up to read the display.

He said, "Aren't you going to answer that?"

"I'm sure they'll call back." She turned off the phone. "So. Social work. A non-profit, or are you still working for the government?"

From inside the restroom, Angelica peered through the barely-open door at Marco and the stranger. They acted like old friends, and Marco was smiling at the woman in a way that he never did at her. That bothered her in one way and comforted her in another. She knew that Marco had had a girlfriend before he'd become her handler, and that they'd drifted apart. The grownup lady with Marco was very pretty, but Angie didn't think this woman was her. Another old girlfriend? Or maybe he knew her from work, from his old job or maybe even from elsewhere within the Agency. She nodded to herself. That would explain his ease with her, as well as the pistol tucked into the small of the woman's back under her denim jacket, visible only to eyes closer to the ground than a grownup's. Angie decided to ask him about this 'Caterina' as soon as they were alone again. She let the door shut and withdrew to use the toilet and down her meds.

But when she opened the door again and looked out, her breath caught, and she wished she'd brought her gun case into the restroom with her. Marco and the lady didn't seem so friendly anymore. Marco's face was closed, and the woman's voice rose as she spoke.

"Why should we look kindly on a government that wants the successful to pay for the failures. To support this redistribution of wealth - a fancy name for stealing."

"Caterina, the North is wealthy because it's been getting government subsidies and tax breaks since the time of the Empire. It's always been the domain of the privileged class. People think it's time the haves pulled their share, is all."

Angelica moved quickly toward the pair, eye on the woman's concealed weapon. If she made a move toward it…

"Privileged class. Is that how you always thought of me? A spoiled child demanding her own way about everything? You never talked like this when you were in uniform, Marco. What kind of-" She stopped. "I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too. Here we are, meeting for the first time in years, and we're shouting at each other over politics."

Ange moved up behind the woman, ready to grab her wrist with her right hand – judging by the way the pistol was inserted into the waistband, Caterina was right-handed – and ram four stiff fingers into her kidney with the left. "Marco? Is everything all right?"

The two grownups turned to her. Marco looked embarrassed. "We're fine, Angelica. People just get worked up when they talk about certain things, that's all. Go play on the swing or something."

She watched them for a moment more, then said, "Okay."

Caterina watched the child go. "Is she all right?"

Marco drew a breath and paused. "She was run over by a car, nearly killed. It's been a long recovery. She's had some setbacks."

"She seems very attached to you."

He tightened up a little more. "I'm her case worker. We spend a lot of time together."

"Where are her parents?"

"In jail. They're the ones who ran her over. There was an insurance policy."

She shook her head. "Incredible. The poor thing."

He decided to change the subject. He nodded toward the Renault, a nondescript vehicle that seemed very unlike her. "You still have your Alfas?"

She smiled again. "Of course I do, this is just a rental."

"I was sure you would have flipped one of them over by now."

"Never. Driving on two wheels is easy, once you learn. Unless your passengers are throwing themselves all over the car making chimpanzee noises."

"That wasn't me. I'm quite sure I never even breathed until all four tires were on the road again." He remembered too well the time she'd done it. The four of them had been in her father's GTV, him in the back seat with Patricia, Caterina driving, and some hopeful wolf from school who'd managed to latch onto her for the weekend filling the shotgun seat. They'd been negotiating a twisting downhill road; the guy had made an offer to take the wheel, coupled with a patronizing remark about women drivers. Caterina had swerved to the shoulder, and her companion's voice had switched off as the right-hand tires crunched in the gravel. Marco had felt the car wobble strangely as she'd twisted the wheel, and suddenly the horizon had tilted as the left wheels lifted off the ground. They'd gone serenely down the road like that for fifty meters while Caterina's date had pissed himself. Marco didn't recall ever seeing him in the feisty blonde's company again. "Who taught you to do that?"

"I taught myself. The first time was an accident - a drunk drifting left of center, all the way into my lane. I was just trying to avoid him. I nearly did flip the car that time. But I didn't, and after I was safe, it had seemed kind of fun. So I tried it again, and again, and got pretty good at it." She glanced toward the swings. "Marco."

He turned. Angelica was in the swing, but she wasn't moving, just sitting with her hands gripping the chains, watching them. Caterina moved toward the swings, and he stepped forward quickly to get there just ahead of her, not sure what might happen. The young heiress crouched in the dusty rut in front of Angie's swing. "Sweetie, is something wrong?"

Angelica said, "I don't know what to do." She looked up at him, apprehensive. "Did I ever play on a swing before?"

Caterina gave him a brief look filled with pity, but when she turned to the girl, she wore a smile on her face and her voice was light. "Would you like me to show you? It'll be fun, I promise."

A minute later, Angie was grinning from ear to ear as she rocketed towards the top of the swing's arc. "Higher!"

Caterina was standing behind the swing, pushing. "I don't think so," she laughed. "You're higher than the bar already. I thought you didn't know how."

"I remember!"

Caterina smiled wide at him. "At least you're feeding her properly. Maybe I'm just stiff from the drive, but it feels like I'm pushing someone twice her size."

He smiled and nodded while alarm bells rang in his head, and not just from Caterina's innocent remark about his cyborg's weight. Returning memories were a sign of conditioning failure. If Angie went on the blink in the middle of the coming op… He looked pointedly at his watch. "I wish we could stay, but we're on our way to an appointment. Angelica, it's time to go."

Caterina slowed the girl to a stop, and she slid off the seat. "Thank you, Caterina."

The tall blonde took her hand. "You're welcome. It was very nice meeting you, Angelica. Maybe we'll see each other again." She turned to him and offered a hand. "Which way are you going?"

He took it and held on. "North. You?"

"South." She nodded. "It was good seeing you again, Marco. You should stop by sometime."

He nodded as well. "I will." He let go of her hand.

On the road again, he reflected on the influence blind chance sometimes played in people's lives. What were the odds that two people with nothing in common but a brief acquaintance years before should meet on a deserted road kilometers from their usual travels? He noted that neither of them had made any real promises for the future, nor had they exchanged numbers. He was sure they'd never meet again.

Beside him, Angie stirred in her seat. He asked, "Something wrong? You didn't forget your bag at the park, did you?"

"No." She frowned. "There was something I wanted to ask you, but I don't remember what it was now."

He turned his attention back to the road. "Well, if it's important, it'll come back to you sooner or later."

Caterina headed south, but her destination was not her vineyard southeast of Rome. Soon, she would turn west, toward Milan and the auto repair shop that was her present base of operations. She remembered her phone, and turned it back on. Immediately, it began to ring. She connected and pressed the phone to her ear.

"Franca." Franco's voice. "Where are you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. Paulina called to warn me about the raid on the safe house before I got there. I turned around and got clear just before they cordoned off the area." She glanced at the two steel suitcases in the seat beside her, each packed with electronics and fifteen kilos of Semtex. "But I'll still be taking back roads all the way home, I think."

"Too close. I warned you about those people and their cruddy security, didn't I? Our people say Public Safety is sending in their black-ops division to take down the holdouts - the assassin teams we've been hearing rumors about."

"Well, if all I wanted was a safe life, I'd still be in school. I'll be home in a few hours." She disconnected.


	7. Chapter 7

**By Alfisti**

Man of God or not, Caccia drove in fine Italian tradition: fast, leaving Jethro in the much larger Audi working hard to keep up as the divine FIAT cocked a rear wheel and lift-off oversteered its way back through town.

Rounding a final uphill hairpin sideways, one which forced his English follower, for want of a proper handbrake to stop and perform a three point turn, the padre pulled up opposite a three-story house, constructed almost at the top of the village. Passing the hatchback, Jethro swung his A5 around so it was pointed back down the hill and came to a halt by the building, a board over the door of which proclaimed it to indeed be the "Hotel Maria".

Whilst he moved to thank the priest, Monty crossed the road to the navel-height stone wall which guarded the drop to the street below. If the view from the square, still visible along the street's zigzagged, descending route, had been amazing; the vista here was absolutely stunning. Spread out below her was the village, walking down the mountain side in steps and terraces, before it met the gentler descent of the wide, open valley floor. Visible on the left was the road they had used to drive in which, after one more switchback, the church perched precariously on its apex, terminated abruptly just a few dozen meters further on. With only one or two houses above the Maria, someone staying there would have fair warning of any approach from miles out.

A call from Jethro pulled the girl from her reverie, and sent her trotting after him as he followed their new friend into the hotel. The front door opened onto a short hall with an arch off to the left, leading into a small dining room, beyond which it split into a set of narrow stairs leading up and a thinner access out to the back of the building, presumably to the kitchen and owner's quarters. Next to the entrance was placed a small counter, little more than somewhere to stand at a computer, with six pigeon holes mounted on the wall behind it.

At the counter stood a middle-aged woman, to whom Caccia was now speaking, "This Giulia, she own. Giulia, these Jacob Metcalf and… niece…"

Absentmindedly at the word, Jethro again wrapped an arm around his cyborg to pull her close. Slipping easily into the well-worn routine, Monty lifted one hand to place it on the back of his, slender fingers wrapping underneath his palm.

"…I find Annetta's, look for stay."

"My, we are busy for the off season," the woman's English was much more fluent than the priest's, and she gave the Blackers a warm smile. "I'm sure we can find them something."

Thanking Caccia as he left, Jethro untangled himself from his cyborg and turned back to the hotel's owner. "So what do you have?"

"I can give you double room on the second floor, if one bed is ok. The bathroom is shared, but there is only one other guest there right now…"

"I thought you said you were busy."

Giulia gave another wan smile, "We have one regular who has one of the upper floor rooms, she is a writer, comes here for peace and quiet…"

"Sounding better by the minute," put in Jethro.

"…and another who check in last night; for here that _is_ busy."

Monty kept her features flat, but the last piqued her interest. A new arrival last night: the night after the botched raid which had landed her here in the first place.

Stowing that information as well she started, "How much?"

"Sixty a night, how long would you like to...?"

The girl glanced at her partner, then, "Two nights… for now."

Rummaging behind the counter for forms, Giulia glanced up at her two new guests, "Have you eaten? If not, breakfast will be on in the dining room for another hour. Once you're checked in you may as well help finish it off."

The former took a further five minutes and, leaving their bags in the car for the time being, the Blackers circled around the counter and into the dining room. Breakfast appeared to be a fairly standard Continental spread of cold meats, fruit, cereal and pastries, arranged on two trestle tables pushed up against the back wall, with coffee and hot water on one end. After the long run from London, Monty suddenly realised how hungry she was. However, right now, of greater interest were the other small tables arranged around the room and, more specifically, their occupants.

By the front window sat a young woman, probably in her mid to late twenties, dressed in leggings and a baggy animal-knit jumper, tapping away at a laptop computer; assumedly the author. The room's other occupant sat towards its rear, part-hidden by his newspaper. As the fratello entered he glanced up, studying them impassively for half a second before returning back to the previous day's events.

Laying a hand lightly on the nape of his girl's neck, Jethro guided her toward a table which would allow him a surreptitious view of the man. There lurked a wariness there, a quiet watchfulness with which he was well familiar: the kind which came from working on the wrong side of the law... and something else, possibly less sinister…

Suddenly the man lowered his paper again and, folding it, tucked it under his arm as he stood to leave. Glancing again at the fratello, he exited the dining room, turning left up the narrow staircase and was gone. Looking across the table, Monty cocked a questioning eyebrow and her partner nodded: something was indeed worth pursuing there.

* * *

In deference to the warming day, Monty traded her heavy coat for a lighter bone trench and, settling a similarly hued rail-conductor's cap over her short, auburn hair, stepped onto the street outside. Standing a moment, she placed both hands in the small of her back and arched rearward, stretching the kinks of many hours on the road out, at the same time checking on the comfortable mass of her PPK tucked up under her dress. Trotting across the cobbled street, she unshipped the expensive Canon DSLR she carried from her shoulder and raised it to peer through the viewfinder.

The Blackers' chosen mark had left the hotel half an hour after their encounter in the dining room, though when the girl had taken a glance at the pigeon holes behind the counter there were still two keys missing from the second floor rooms, so assumedly he was still checked in. Now, with their bags safely ensconced she was out to find him again, while her partner slept off the long drive from UK soil.

Using the low wall as a prop to steady her arms, Monty scanned the village below. In order to help allay suspicion, the camera was only mounted with its standard lens, which had a maximum 105mm zoom; however her sharp vision helped make up some of the capability gap. She soon found her target, seated outside a trattoria, facing onto the square she and Jethro had visited that morning. Framing the scene such that it could pass for a well-composed holiday snap, the young agent fiddled with the camera's settings for a moment and hit the shutter release. Taking another frame on different settings for good measure, she stepped back from the wall and started to meander down the steep streets, careful not to slip over in her high-heeled boots, shooting more photos as she went.

While the distance was only short, at her ambling pace it took the better part of fifteen minutes to make the journey back to the village square. Emerging from a narrow set of steps between buildings, the girl was relieved to find her quarry still present at his table, reading a book. Using the dry fountain in the middle of the square to frame her shot, Monty captured another image of the man, before starting to work her way around the space, photographing the frescos painted on its buildings.

Closing on the trattoria, she lowered the camera again, in time to catch her mark glance in her direction, before quickly returning to his story.

_Nervous then, or at least watchful._

Unfortunately merely being jumpy didn't constitute proof of being wrapped up in something illicit, and right now, right here, there was little she could have done had he belonged to the Padania anyway. That said, the last thing she needed was him cracking and scarpering before the Agency could run his picture. Perhaps it was time to put him at ease a little.

Sidling within speaking distance of the man's table, Monty fired her camera again, before slinging it over her shoulder and turning to the square's other occupant.

"It's a beautiful village isn't it?"

The man froze, looking at her like a deer in the headlights.

"You were at the Maria as well weren't you?"

Still nothing.

"Umm… _parli Inglese_?"

Whether it was the girl's slowly more earnest tones, or the British accent, something clicked at that and a little tension left the man's shoulders. Not all of it, and his guard was still obviously up, but the startled expression was replaced by a more relaxed one and a small smile cracked his lips.

"Yes, I do speak some English," he glanced around the square, "and you right, it is a beautiful village... I would not mind being buried here."

Not asking for permission, Monty took the table's second chair, setting her camera down on its wooden top then, checking her watch, called the waiter over.

"Uno cappuccino…" she cocked an eyebrow at her companion, "…do you want something?"

He shook his head.

"Just the cappuccino then _per favour_."

As the waiter left, the man across the table studied her from back in his seat.

"If you do not mind me saying, this is a very remote part of Italy to find the _Inglese_."

The girl returned his gaze levelly, "My… _uncle_… and I; we don't much care for crowds. It is far preferable to find somewhere like here, where we won't be… bothered."

The Italian paused. "That, I can understand. It sounds like we like here for similar reasons."

Monty cocked a questioning eyebrow.

"I… lost someone… recently, a very close friend. I'm… I think I need to take a moment to escape the world, step back... to think."

"Hence stopping here."

"_S__ì_."

Silence.

At that moment the waiter returned with one cappuccino, and her companion took the opportunity to change the subject. "That is a nice camera you have."

"Thank you, my uncle bought it for me."

"Your uncle is very generous."

"Personally I prefer film, but digital has its place."

"I photograph a little myself, do you mind if I…?"

Taking a sip of her drink, and savouring the flavour of coffee hitting her tongue, Monty paused for a moment before gesturing at her Canon. "Go right ahead."

Picking the camera up, her target raised it to his eye and swept it around the square, occasionally fiddling with a setting, asking what something did or her own personal preferences for different environments, or giving his own opinions. From her seat, the young agent easily kept up her end of the conversation on , shutter speeds, white balance and ISO numbers. Finally, as her mark set the DSLR down again, she polished off her coffee and stood up, glancing at her watch as she did so.

"And now, I really must be going."

"I imagine your… uncle… will be starting wonder where you are."

"Maybe, probably not... but it's nice for him to have someone there when he wakes up."

The Italian put out his hand. "Well it is a beautiful camera, and it has been a pleasure talking Ms…"

"Lara."

"They do not have last names where you are from?"

"Seemingly not, Mister…?"

"Dino."

Monty quirked a small smile at that. "I take it not where you are from either."

"No, not at all."


	8. Chapter 8

**By MP5**

In the streets of Trento, Nicomedo Sebastino did his best to blend in with the crowd after fleeing the safehouse in Merano just a few short days ago. He had done this sort of thing before, and for the longest time, his ability to be a veritable chameleon let him elude the authorities. But the presence of those two gun-toting girls at the safehouse meant that the rumors were true about the secret government agency that used little girls as assassins. Their existence made his life slightly more complicated, but he was sure that for at least a few days, they would not be looking for him. Still, he moved through the crowded sidewalk with purpose, scanning for any sign of law enforcement out to get him. Nicomedo had enough prior experience with this kind of situation to spot a tail, and he knew how to lose them, too.

Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted when someone collided with him, and the both of them were knocked off balance and to the pavement. Grumbling, the Padanian looked at the person who had bumped into him, a young man; a foreigner by the looks of it. The foreigner gazed right back at him for a second before apologizing in English.

"Sorry about that, mate. Didn't mean to bump into you." Said the boy in front of him, offering to help him up.

"Watch where you're going next time, _Inglese_." Nicomedo spat, getting to his feet on his own. "_Turisti_ like you will rub someone the wrong way very quickly."

"Sorry, _signore_. Won't happen again." The boy replied sheepishly before trotting off. Nicomedo began dusting himself off―and then stopped when he noticed something felt off. Reaching into his pocket, he realized his wallet was gone―that kid who bumped into him was a pickpocket! Whirling around, Nicomedo spotted the boy some distance away in the crowd and decided to give chase.

"_Ehi, pezzo di merda!_ Give me back my wallet!"

The pickpocket quickly broke into a run, weaving through the crowd like water where Nicomedo was not hesitant in having to bully his way through human traffic, shoving random people out of his way. The Padanian still could not keep up with his adversary, however, and was quite far behind when he saw the thief duck into an alleyway. All he could do was follow.

In the alleyway, the pickpocket arrived at a junction, connecting the alleyway with another that led to the back of several other shops. A young man in a suit stood, as if in wait at the corner of the building to the pickpocket's right, and the latter stopped by the former to speak.

"I've got 'im on me arse, Andy. Should be right this way in about ten seconds."

"Just reel him in, Charlie. I'll take care of the rest." Andy replied producing a butterfly knife and flicking it open artfully. Stepping behind the corner, he watched as his brother Charlie stepped confidently back the way he came just as Nicomedo found him.

"Oi, Wanker!" Charlie shouted as he waved Sebastino's wallet in the air. "You want this? Gotta catch me first!"

Charlie ran off down the alleyway, prompting the Padanian to continue the chase.

_You little shit, just wait until I get my hands on―_

A sharp pain in his belly interrupted Nicomedo's thoughts, causing him to look down whereupon he saw a knife had been plunged into his stomach, and another glance up showed him the face of the person who had just sealed his fate. It was Andy, who almost looked exactly the same as his wallet's thief, Sebastino noticed, but he wore a suit and his expression appeared to be dour, almost bored with what he was doing. Nicomedo tried to stumble away from the suit with the knife, attempting to reach for his Beretta tucked under his jacket, but Charlie's twin would have none of it, grasping the Padanian's wrist and breaking it with a forceful twist. Removing his butterfly knife from Sebastino's belly, Andy spun the operative around so that he could drag him from behind, and as Nicomedo began to struggle, he simply thrust his butterfly knife into his captive again, this time into the man's heart from behind, twisting the knife as Nicomedo cried out into the gloved hand placed over his mouth to muffle protest.

"Don't struggle mate, it'll all be over soon." Andy reassured in a neutral tone. Sure enough, Nicomedo's struggling weakened, and Andy finished him off by embedding his knife into the base of the Padanian's skull, piercing the medulla oblongata. At this, Nicomedo's body slumped in his arms, and the target was officially eliminated. Withdrawing his knife, Andy wiped off the blade before deftly flicking the butterfly knife closed and tucking it away. Andy then hefted Nicomedo Sebastino's body into the nearest dumpster, and since Charlie had circled back around with the man's wallet, they simply took his driver's license and all his money as well as the Beretta from his holster before throwing in the wallet along with Nicomedo's body, making it look like a mugging. While Andy took care of the body, Charlie dialed up a number on his iPhone.

"Montagne."

"Nicolette, Andy and I are done here. Pick us up sharpish?"

"Magnifique. I'll meet you both at the end of the alleyway. Sit tight."

Ending the call as Andy finished placing the body into the nearby dumpster, Charlie decided on a little small talk with his twin sibling.

"Can you believe this?"

"Believe what?"

"You and I, Andy, getting away with murder and theft, sanctioned and encouraged by the Italian government. Isn't life grand?"

"If you're some kind of hedonistic serial killer, then yeah, I s'pose. Honestly, I just want to go home before the rozzers start sniffing around." Andy deadpanned.

"Your problem is, you have no sense of humor." Charlie replied. The roar of a supercharged V8 and the light screech of disc brakes alerted the pair that their escape route had arrived.

"There's Nicolette now. C'mon, let's go back to the safehouse, I know I saw a drinks cabinet in there…"

Andy simply rolled his eyes as he followed Charlie to their handler's Jaguar XF-R saloon, the body of Nicomedo Sebastino all but forgotten in the dumpster until one of the workers at the restaurant it was located behind discovered it later.

**By Tremec6speed**

The long drive to the compound after completing a difficult mission left Helen the cyborg exhausted yet without complaint, quiet as the proverbial mouse as was expected of the child from her perpetually irritable handler, Salvatore. However, the low rev sound of the 4X4 AMC Eagle was interrupted by a simple ring of the adult's cell phone. After a brief conversation that involved more listening on the handler's part than an actual exchange, Sal informed his charge that there was yet more to do; they were to assist in driving out terrorists intrenched on a picturesque, mountainous area of Italy known as Alto Adige. The instructions given to the cyborg were bare, straight forward and simple, devoid of any friendly banter or optimistic encouragement as might be part an parcel of a partnership, rather this handler's communications were more akin to the cold programming of a computer. Helen knew her place, respond with an affirmation if she understood, or expect yelling and insults if she did not.  
"Ye-yes sir." She answered.

Speaking of knowing one's place, the particular location they were to arrive at was a certain forested area where several enemy was said to have stationed themselves possibly as back up for a larger force as reported by a distant drone fly-by.  
The target area was roughly a mile from one of several small cluster of dwellings that dotted the landscape. Helen was to conduct search and destroy then wait for any further instructions from Salvatore as given to him by Jean while other fratelli and agents completed their own assignments in the same overall region in a push to eliminate yet another nest of criminals threatening the State. Upon arriving at Alto Adige, the girl had her folding-stock AK inside her customized back pack for easy retrieval, as well as a Colt .45 hand gun and additional magazines under her short sleeve shirt. Finally, she carried a Ka-Bar Tanto Fighting Knife for hand to hand situations inside a specially designed pocket on her inner pant leg.

An intimidating and stern look accompanied orders to go up the hill and wipe clean all opposing forces as he 'investigated' any possible goings on at the little town. Once more the two words of acknowledgment were given as the little girl steeled herself for whatever may be out there. The trek up was nonevent-full until Helen spotted a hunched back figure slowly making it's way towards the village below. Flipping the back pack to her side in order to access the hidden assault rifle, she was prepared for the first strike if the situation called for it. As she drew closer however, the figure in question turned out to be an old woman wearing a colorful head scarf and dressed in a simple flowery dress that extended a few inches above her hiking boots. "Buongiorno!" The old lady exclaimed with a warm friendly smile that could disarm Rambo himself.  
"Hello madam," the cyborg responded sighing in relief that she had not opened fire on a senior citizen.  
"But my goodness, you must be new around here. I think I would have remembered a pretty young lady like you in my old village."  
Blushing, the mechanical agent replied with the line Sal made her memorize.  
"My daddy an I are on vacation and he let me go ahead on to the top. I'm sure he'll catch me up before I make it there." she said, gesturing to the inhabitants below.  
"I see, I see." The woman said nodding her head maintaining her abundantly cheery smile. "My old legs are not what they used to be child. Perhaps you can assist me down to my little home, we'll probably come across your father along the way and you can introduce me to him."  
A nervous expression suddenly afflicted the cyborg's face as she knew any delay would give yet another reason for her 'father' to flare up again and beat her. "I, I am most sorry madam. Uh, you see it is a... a bet that we have going an I don't dare fail such an ord- er, challenge. ha ha hee!" Sweat ran down her face as she felt unprepared for such a request although deep down the little cyborg would dearly love to make friends and get to know the country lady with the inviting smile. Guilt manifested itself as she looked away standing there, awkwardly.  
"Very well my child, if you must..." As the woman turned and started on her way towards the village, the cyborg hesitantly continued her way up. Within mere moments however, the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked was picked up by the enhanced girl's hearing. Long hours of training kicked in and the sack was dropped on the ground simultaneously whipping out the Kalashnikov while she spun around in the direction of the sound.

To her surprise, the hand that wielded the weapon was none other than the sweet old lady she spoke to moments before. The hesitation brought on by that realization almost cost the pony tailed diminutive agent her life as the enemy's aim was for her very head. Two bullets whizzed her hair, but then the AK's death song merged with a cry of pain emitted by the loser in this brief fight. As the old woman collapsed, her life blood staining the grass underneath, vile curses for the child's own death were her final words. Knowing that this would surely alert the opposing forces above, Helen ran as fast as her super powered legs could carry her in an effort to take the battle to them before they could spread out. Sure enough, a group of about 8 men armed with HK-104s and AR-15s opened fire, but not before the pint-sized killing machine cut down half their number. Perhaps panic or a planned response made the remaining enemy combatants run in different directions hitting the ground immediately afterward. The cyborg did the same until again, her intensified hearing alerted her of the explosive about to be used against her.

" #$%^ freak, let's see how you like my granata!" Quickly, Helen crouched up just enough to get a fix on him despite the others opening fire. Pain signaled the accuracy of an AR-15's intention to end her own life hitting the cyborg's shoulder, but her aim was true and the bomb was never launched. Again, her handler's relentless training saved the day as SWA agent ignored the damage, took her shot hitting the mark and fell inching towards another member of the opposition. Fear ruled the battle field this day: fear for their own life governed the terrorists, while the same emotion most certainly owned the child's state of mind. Once more her hearing alerted the mechanical girl to the frightened inter change amongst the few gun toting men left. Two of the four said they should give up, lest they die that day. For the second time the little girl felt the grip of hesitation caused by guilt, for she knew Salvatore Battaglia wanted no stragglers.  
"Coward!" she then heard clearly as it had been shouted so that even one with no advanced hearing capability would have understood. Looking up she saw two men run away only to be cut down by their own side. Taking the opportunity presented her, the cyborg opened fire on the remaining fighters who arched their backs in, killing them while their attention was focused away from her. At this point, silence once more swept past the hillside except for the occasional gust of wind that moved the leaves, the grass and the clothes of the fallen as well as her own. A further inspection of the area revealed her mission was complete; no further terrorists remained in that location. Helen informed Sal of everything including having been hit. Her face grimaced as she did so knowing the moment the two would be alone together, there would be punishment for having been injured.


	9. Chapter 9

**By TheScarredMan**

Alessandro moved through the woods, the pistol in his hand feeling strange and uncomfortable. Petrushka walked three steps behind, probably more dangerous with her hands in her pockets, Sandro thought sourly, than he would be with a Skorpion in each hand. But he felt compelled to go armed nonetheless. Somewhere ahead were dangerous men with bad intentions.

Having read three books on the subject didn't make him an expert tracker, but it had rained the day before, and it didn't take much skill to follow their quarry's bootprints in the damp ground. The ground was hilly as well as wooded, with sudden steep inclines and declines, and Sandro could see several places where the men ahead of them had slid and lost their footing. One might almost think the Padania foot soldiers were blazing a trail for their pursuers to follow.

He and Petra had been vectored in by field command towards a pair of fleeing FRF operatives, and had found their abandoned vehicle by the side of a gravel road with its doors open, and tracks leading into the trees. They'd parked their own car and followed.

Hunters and hunted were in a hurry. Sandro could see by the long strides and deep heelprints that the two were walking fast. But they weren't running. They were moving as if they had no time to waste, but not because they were fleeing pursuit. His suspicions gained weight when he saw a third set of prints join the first two.

"Keep an ear cocked along our back trail," he said in a low voice. "And keep quiet." He wasn't worried about anyone hearing Petra's footsteps – his 'borg was eerily light on her feet, and stepped along the damp leaf-strewn ground as daintily as a deer – but, alone with him, Petra sometimes had trouble keeping her mouth shut.

He reflected that this location was nearly ideal for a walk with a pretty girl. The air was cool, but not uncomfortably so, as long as he was moving. The trees weren't quite fully leaved yet, and blue sky and fleecy clouds brightened the view of the craggy mountains visible through every break in the foliage. The path would be just wide enough to walk side-by-side, holding hands with their hips bumping at every step. Very nice indeed. He looked back at the pretty redhead following him with a Taurus nine-millimeter in her hand, looking for someone to shoot, and she gave him a little smile before her eyes resumed their sweep of their surroundings. He turned his attention back to the trail ahead.

They came to a clearing. He stopped at the edge of the woods and looked over the dilapidated farmstead beyond. The farmhouse was built of fieldstone, as was the bottom story of the barn; they might have been erected a hundred years ago or a thousand, and looked tight and solid, if in need of paint. But there were weeds growing tall in the drive, and the state of the fences told him that no livestock had been run here in a very long time.

If the Padania suspected pursuit, this would be a perfect spot to make their tail and ambush it. "What do you hear? See anything?"

"Birdsong." Petra swiveled her head like a search radar. "I just heard someone grunt, the way you might if you slipped and fell down. But it's coming from the other side of the woods." She smiled. "And I think he dropped his gun."

"Are they moving?"

"The sounds are getting fainter. They're moving deeper into the trees."

"Just passing through, then." Sandro was now sure that the three men were hurrying _toward_ something, not away. Staying in the cover of the trees would lengthen his and Petra's walk to the other side by half. If these men were headed towards another car, he might lose them. He started out into the open. "Let's go."

They beelined for the other side, taking fences as they encountered them. Sandro climbed over carefully, grumbling at the sight of his cyborg using some odd scissor kick to flit sideways over the chest-high railings without touching them, as easily as if they were half a meter tall. The house and barn were nearly in the center of the clearing, and they were nearly between them when Sandro heard a shout ahead.

Petra said, "Sandro …"

"I heard it."

"No. Behind us, too." She swiveled her head. "And all around."

Now he heard it too: men calling to one another in the woods, echoing. "How many?"

"Eight, for sure ... ten." She turned her head again. "Twelve. Maybe more." She looked at him. "They're all coming this way now. Trap?"

He shook his head. "They're not trying to be quiet. I don't think they know we're here." That could change in an instant, if someone came out of the woods and saw them; a minor miracle it hadn't already happened. Neither the farmhouse nor the barn would be defensible by two against a dozen or more. They needed to get out of sight. He considered. The farmhouse? If this was a meeting, it would be the first place they'd go; if it was an ambush, the first place they'd look. "The barn, quick."

The big barn was as tight and dry as he'd expected, and just as deserted. A broad aisle led straight to the back from the doors, and stalls lined the long walls, but there was no sign of animal husbandry. The strongest smell was of hay; clumps of the stuff lay strewn about the floor. But it was flat and dusty, as if it had been there for a long time. Sandro guessed that the barn had last been used to store bales of the stuff years before.

He called Jean. "We've got a bit of a situation. The two you sent us after just met up with a bunch more. Probably more refugees from the safehouse raid, but I'm not sure."

"_What's their position relative to you?_"

"Pick a direction. And they're already too close for comfort."

"_Find a good spot to observe, and report their movements._"

Sandro reminded himself that Jean Croce was a smart guy; he just didn't fully understand the situation. "They're moving straight towards us from all around. Even odds they'll find out we're here in the next ten minutes. We're going to find a good spot to hide, _now_, and wait for lots of backup. You can locate us through our cell phones." He disconnected and shut off the phone. So long as the battery was in and charged, it would still signal its location to people who knew how to ask, but he didn't want to risk an incoming call giving them away. Petra was giving him a wide-eyed look that he would have thought was quite fetching, if his stomach wasn't knotting up. "Shut off your phone."

She complied. "Some of them are in the clearing. I think they're headed for the house."

They were stuck in the barn, then. He turned about for a quick survey. There wasn't much to work with in the big open space broken only by the walls of the horse stalls. The loft, maybe? Quickly he ascended the ladder for a look. It was as he'd expected: a broad expanse of plank floor, bare except for a few tufts of hay. As a hiding place, it would work only if the searcher went no farther than sticking his head in the door for a quick look around. Sandro thought about the tracks they'd left leading right to the barn door, and hustled down the ladder in search of something better.

At the far end of the aisle, against the back wall, stood a very large wooden box with a hinged lid – a feed box. It would be plenty big enough for the two of them; it was also the first place a searcher would look.

"I think they're all in the clearing now."

He could hear them too: men calling back and forth, questions, answers, orders. They were moving in, perhaps setting up another refuge. They'd be sure to examine the barn.

Gather the hay into one big pile and hide inside? That would take time, and he didn't think it would work. His attention returned to the feed box against the wall. Maybe if they pulled it away just enough to squeeze behind, the searchers wouldn't think to look, just lift the lid for a peek and go away. It sounded like wishful thinking, but they were running out of options – and time.

He got his fingers between the back of the box and the wall, and pulled. The box moved a few centimeters and stuck, probably caught on an uneven floorboard.

Petra said, "What are you-"

"Wait." He supposed he should have just told her to do it, but it was his idea, and he wanted to see to it himself if he could. He moved around to the front, slid his fingers under the lid, and gripped the front edge. He pushed up, grunting, trying to lift the front of the box off whatever it was stuck on.

With a crunch, the plank gave under his feet, and he was falling. He let go of the box, flailing, and grunted again when his feet hit solid ground with his knees still above the floor. He stumbled, barked his shins, and nearly flattened his nose against the box.

"Sandro?"

"I'm all right. Give me a hand up."

He pulled the broken boards free, creating a hole big enough to stick his head and shoulders into for a look around. The barn floor had been laid across heavy wood beams on the ground, maybe twenty or twenty-five centimeters square, and spaced a little closer than shoulder width. But the two framing this cavity appeared to span a dry stream bed that ran under the building. _Two centuries of horse piss falling through the cracks, more likely._ But the stony ground was dry, and whatever had caused it, it had created a cavity about the size of the inside of a coffin.

"Sandro, they're in the farmhouse."

_Beggars can't be choosers_, he thought. "Pull the box to the edge of the hole, so you can reach it after you get in. Then pull it over us."

"Right." A second later it was done. She slipped into the hole like water, and raised her arms, looking at him. He was puzzled for a moment until he realized just how tight their hide was. There was no place for him but on top of her. She was going to have to reach past him to maneuver the box. And, after the box was on top of them, there'd be no place for her arms to go but around him.

He huffed and shook his head, then eased into the opening feet-first and face-down. Careful as he tried to be, he couldn't avoid putting a knee into her belly, then her thigh, but she didn't protest. He scraped his back on the underside of the floor planking as he scooted down. He placed his elbows on the ground on either side of her, trying to keep some of his weight off her.

Her arms were on either side of his head, bumping his ears with her elbows as she lifted the box and walked it over the hole. It scraped his back and forced him against her. Then the box thumped down, and the light disappeared. Her arms settled around his neck with her forearms crossed under his shoulder blades. He felt her knees separate, and his slipped to the stones.

Petra's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. There was still a small amount of light leaking from between the ancient floorboards, adequate to her needs, anyway. Sandro's eyes stared blankly, and she realized that he was still wrapped in blind darkness. She thought of telling him she could see, but decided not to; it seemed more fitting that they share the discomfort. She closed her eyes. "Sandro?" She whispered. "Are you okay? You're breathing funny."

"There's no air in here."

There seemed to her to be plenty of air. Maybe it was different for cyborgs. She wished she could give him more room; that might ease his breathing. Could she deepen the depression a little? She shrugged her shoulders, trying to scrape away some dirt beneath her, but it was packed solid; all she succeeded in doing was to dislodge a grape-sized stone to roll down the hollow of her spine and lodge in the small of her back. She arched her back a little and rolled her hips, trying to move it aside.

Sandro hissed, "Love of _God_, can't you lie _still_?"

She froze, embarrassed. "Sorry." Now, besides the stone in her back, something was pressing into the inside of her thigh. Sandro must have put his gun in his pocket, she thought. She hoped the safety was on.

They lay in the dark, not speaking; she listened to the muffled sounds above: voices, doors opening and closing, footsteps. She heard the barn door open and shut, and they held their breath as they heard footsteps on the planks. The one in front of the feed box creaked. There was a thump, and the footsteps headed for the door.

More time passed. Sandro's face hung above her, never more than a hand's width away. She could feel his breath on her face. She remembered the time they'd played lovers in his car to fool a roving Padania assassin. She remembered the feel of his hands and lips on her. She remembered a fleeting thought that the Padanian had moved on too soon. Sandro's head dipped, bringing his face closer. She licked her lips, which suddenly felt big as pillows. The slightest move of her head would bring their mouths together, just a blind accident in the dark…

Sandro trembled. That was puzzling; surely he wasn't afraid. She had never seen him afraid. Then she realized that only his arms were shaking. _Muscle fatigue_. He'd been supporting himself on his elbows since they'd gone into the hole.

"Sorry," he said. "I can't…"

Her hands found the back of his head and pulled him down. She tucked his nose into her neck. "Sorry. I should have noticed."

"Why should you? You don't get tired."

"You're my handler. I'm supposed to know when you're hurting." She went on, "It's okay. I think I can control myself." When he huffed, she said, "Was that funny?"

"It should be, in a sane world."

A little while later, his breathing slowed and deepened, and she smiled up at the floorboards.

Gunfire woke them both.

Sandro raised his head, listening. She said, "Should we…"

"Yes. Get us out of here."

She reached past him and pushed, hard. The box tipped over to fall against the wall. Then it fell on its back, sliding forward and covering the hole again. "Oops," she said and walked it off. The gunfire continued.

Sandro planted his palms back in the dirt just as a man's voice above them said, "Got them."

Sandro froze for a moment, then said, "Roberto?"

"None other. Silvie, watch the door."

"Right," came a girl's voice. More gunfire outside, and the sound of motors.

He lifted his head. Roberto stood over the hole, SIG 550 in hand. At the door, looking out, stood Silvia, his first-generation cyborg. Petra lifted her arms, freeing Sandro to climb out. He started to rise, and his trousers caught on a stray nail driven through the floorboards, and he had to stop and free them to get out. He flushed, thinking what that must look like. He had to put a knee into Petra again; she put out a hand to steady him as he pulled his legs out of the hole. "Roberto, I-"

The man raised a hand. "Don't," he said. "You'll only make it worse. Give your girl a hand up." His attention returned to his phone. "They look fine. You sure you don't need us?"

He helped Petra to her feet, still in the hole, and hung on to her hand until she stepped out. It wasn't too hard a task: she weighed more than a girl her size should, but no more than he did; he imagined the child in the doorway weighed more than either of them. Her fingers lingered in his palm a little long, he thought, and he withdrew his hand and turned away. He brushed at his clothes. "Who else is here?"

"Mehrandish & Sophia, Theuma & Donatello...and us of course. Jean's back at Field Command but he sent Rico along...she's up in the tree line covering us with a rifle. The fight's over. The bad guys are down or on the run." The man was looking past him. Sandro turned and saw Petra fussing with her hair and clothes, not meeting anyone's eyes.

"Petra," Roberto said, "would you go see Silvia? She's been worried about you. Give her some reassurance, will you?"

The girl smiled and headed down the aisle to the doors. Roberto watched her go. "Alessandro, who suggested you give her a boy's name? Jean?"

"Several people, actually. Jean, Marco ..."

Roberto scoffed. "The man who named his girl 'Angelica'. I suppose he thinks he's learned something since then." He watched the two girls talking at the door. Petra was petting the smaller cyborg's head and smiling. "I'm not going to spread any stories, Sandro. And I won't be looking sideways at you if I see her take your hand." Petra retrieved a small tube from her pocket and applied it to Silvia's lips. "They're not hunting dogs. Even Jean knows better than that. It's just easier to think of them that way, for some people at least." His face blanked. "She's forgetting things. It's only been three years. Too damned soon."

Sandro felt cold. "Isn't there something they can do?"

"Oh, they have plenty of things they want to try – once she's too far gone to be an effective combat unit." Sandro saw the muscles under Roberto's ears jump. "They must think I'm the one with the bad memory. How many times have they told us the effects of conditioning are cumulative and irreversible? I know what they really want to do with her." He turned back to Sandro. "I've been doing this almost as long as Marco. For what it's worth, here's my advice for handling a cyborg and hanging onto your humanity." He turned back to the door. Silvia's shotgun was slung across her back, and the two girls were hugging. "Use her as you must, Sandro. But make her as happy as you can. And when she starts to slip away … don't let them drag it out for their research. Don't let her die lost and afraid. Find her something quick and sudden. You owe her that much."

Two hours later, after the bodies had been removed but before the forensics people were done, Roberto said to his girl, "Getting on towards supper time. What say we head into town?"

She smiled like sunshine. "Sure."

Their car lay along a service road on the other side of a small woodlot. They traveled through the woods side by side, in no hurry. Roberto felt a small cold hand brush against his, and he grasped it.

Silvia said, "Berto … that lady who was so nice to me. We're friends, I know that. But I can't remember her name."

"You know, I can't either." He gave her hand a little squeeze. "People forget things all the time, Silvie. Don't worry about it."


	10. Chapter 10

**By MP5**

"Everyone in the cabin, drop your weapons! You're surrounded by armed bastards!"

"Goddammit Vincent, do you have a fucking clue what element of surprise means―"

The Section 2 team surrounding a suspected Padania hideout in Lazins dropped to the ground as gunfire burst from within the cabin they were about to raid, but handler Vincent Pucci's outburst, a rather stupid habit carried over from his U.S. Marshal days, blew their advantage away in a hail of incoming fire.

"You dipshit Jersey boy! It's a wonder how Carmelita puts up with you!" handler Chelsea Koch shouted in frustration. Glancing at her cyborg, she issued an order to right their situation. "Scott, get up and suppress!"

"Yes'm!" replied the young Scottish cyborg as he got to his feet. Bashing open a gunfire-shattered window even further with the muzzle of his Knights Armament Company 'ChainSAW', he held down the trigger, sweeping the muzzle back and forth across the interior of the cabin with the intent of keeping heads down, seemingly infinite links of 5.56mm cartridges continuously fed into the hungry maw of his weapon by a TYR Tactical Machine Gunners Assault Pack purchased for evaluation by Q-branch. The other cyborgs, following Scott's lead, also began engaging the enemy inside, with another boy breaching the door with his Serbu Super Shorty compact shotgun firing a single FRAG-12 HE shell into the doorknob assembly. As the door flew open, a third boy rushed in with a _gold-plated_ AKMS, shouting insults as he opened fire.

"Yo, fag sticks! Suck on my 'K!"

As M43 assault rounds sliced and ripped through furniture, finding their way into Padanian bodies whose cries of pain were drowned out by the firefight, Vincent could barely be heard shouting, "'Lita, get in there and help Matthew out!" before a slim girl of Hispanic descent rushed in, sliding on her knees, tracking some alpine snow into the small abode until she came in contact with the sofa the boy with the garish Kalashnikov took cover behind. Sticking her shotgun over the backrest with the muzzle in the direction of the hostiles, she pulled the trigger, letting fly a literal firestorm as a loaded 'Dragon's Breath' shell spewed burning hot magnesium from the arrowhead muzzle brake of her Mossberg 500 Road Blocker, attempting to set off an inferno that would smoke out the remaining hostiles. The sparks of magnesium found their mark, touching off pieces of other furniture that began to burn. By now, Scott had long since stopped sweeping the cabin from the single window, knowing his fellow cyborgs could get caught in the line of fire and had moved to the back of the cabin, expecting any remaining enemies to bolt out the back since Matthew and the other girl cyborg in their group, Carmelita, had blocked off the front door. Waiting in ambush across from him was a tall and somewhat buxom blonde cyborg named Becky with a Ruger Super Redhawk .44 magnum revolver in hand and a Mini-14 assault rifle slung across her back. Aiming the large revolver into the doorway, Scott also readied his heavy firepower as thick smoke continued to pour out of the burning cabin. Desperate screaming grew louder until a Padanian set alight by the quickly spreading inferno came stumbling out engulfed in flame, flailing his arms and screaming bloody murder, a sight that caught Scott and Becky by surprise before the latter ended their enemy's misery with a single bullet through the head, causing the terrorist to collapse into the snow. Scott whipped around with his ChainSAW to mow down the other Padanians who had rushed out right after the first one who was on fire.

"Hang on, I still hear voices inside of there." Scott noted, placing his ChainSAW in the snow along with his ammo backpack. Rushing inside, he returned a moment later dragging a pair of moaning, wounded Padania out of the inferno into the cold snow, whereupon Becky delivered the coup de grace to both terrorists. Matthew and Carmelita regrouped with them, along with the rest of the handlers.

"That should be all of 'em," said Becky's handler Cindy Schmidt in her distinct Texas twang. Suddenly, the sound of a car engine starting drew everyone's attention as a Land Rover Discovery roared towards the group in an attempt to run them down, the fratello quickly diving out of the way before opening fire on the vehicle but unable to score a hit on the driver. Then, the echo of a distant rifle report reached their ears just as the 4x4 began to swerve before rolling over and crashing into a snow bank, its wheels spinning lamely in the air as the engine died. As they all checked to make sure everyone was all right, Matthew's handler Alonso DiGirolomo pressed the transmit button on his throat mic.

"Great shot, Saladin. The assistance is greatly appreciated on our end, over."

"Copy; I am glad I could be of assistance. Out."

On a hilltop 2000 meters away from the burning cabin, a young Pashtun boy festooned in winter camouflage cycled the bolt on his CheyTac Intervention rifle as his Nepalese Gurkha handler Chris Sadaula continued to observe the scene with a spotting scope, laying alongside his charge in prone position.

"Well done, Saladin. It looks like they can take care of things from here. Why don't we pack everything and go somewhere else to warm up?"

"As you wish, sir." Saladin replied blankly, opening the action of the CheyTac and unloading it for transport.


	11. Chapter 11

**By Prof. Voodoo**

Rapid touring on steep mountain roads was what Elio's Ducati ST4S had been designed for. Despite its size the sport-touring bike flicked nimbly from side to side, following endless switchback turns down the terraced hillside. Massive torque from the V-twin engine provided ample motivation to fire the motorcycle out of each turn and into the next where its Brembo brake calipers scrubbed off the speed in anticipation of another deep lean. Alboreto would have been enjoying this ride a great deal had it not been for the irritating hail of machine gun rounds being dispatched in the direction of his motorcycle, his cyborg and his personage.

If it were merely a chase the Ducati would have enjoyed a commanding advantage over the Opel Vectra it pursued, but gun-play had a nasty habit of complicating everything. The obligation to provide his cyborg with a stable platform from which to return fire compromised Alboreto's riding style severely. Each time he rolled on the throttle the front end lifted. Normally Elio would have shifted his weight forward to counter-act this but not with Marisa hanging onto the belt of his jacket. The hairpin turns offered their own problem; Elio's lean angle was limited by the hard luggage bags clipped to either side of the bike. Alone he could have shifted his body out of the seat and dragged a knee like a roadracer...keeping the bike more upright by doing so. Once again, this was not an option with Marisa firing from the pillion seat, so Alboreto found himself scraping the saddlebags on the pavement in every turn.

As the road dropped down from level to level each party had one good opportunity to launch broadside fire at their adversary. It was two guns against one...the Opel having a man in each passenger window, but Marisa could easily switch from side to side. Still, she was running out of full magazines for her Kel-Tech and Elio knew it. He had to end the chase soon or give up their quarry.

In his eagerness Alboreto pushed too hard into one of the hairpins. The saddlebags hit tarmac, unloading the front end dangerously. Elio had to slam his boot down like an American dirt-track racer and stand the bike up. Headed toward the guard rail he rolled the throttle wide open, smoking the rear tire and sliding the heavy touring bike around just in time to avoid an impact. A lot of momentum was lost, and Elio cursed himself for the mistake. "Ditch the bags, Mari!" he ordered, not anxious to repeat the perilous stunt.

"Copy!" responded the young cyborg over her wireless helmet intercom. She reached down and pushed the release latches on either side, sending the fratello's spare clothing bouncing down the road behind them.

Free of the hard-bags, Elio could lean deeper into the turns and get a better run onto the short straights. In short order he caught the Opel again, providing Marisa with the advantage. The two Padania gunmen now had to hang from their windows to fire behind them, while Mari could lean off to the side and fire straight ahead, under her Master's arm. Her aim was true; the Vectra's rear window exploded in a shower of tempered glass cubes...the same bullet continuing its journey forward through the passenger cabin and into the driver's head.

The hatchback kissed the guard-rail hard and bounced back into the road before coming to a steaming halt...Elio had to get on the brakes hard to avoid hitting it. Marisa wasted no time, jumping off the Ducati before it was even fully stopped and blasting the two remaining FRF men with 7.62 rounds. One died before he even got out of the car but the other bailed out in time and used the stricken Opel for cover. In an effort to draw fire away from her handler, Marisa charged him.

It was a move that would cost her; the Padania man scored a direct hit at nearly point blank range. Mari's AGV helmet burst into a snowstorm of fiberglass & polystyrene foam fragments, but the bullet itself glanced off her artificial skull. She cleared the Opel's hood in one leap, delivering a crushing kick to the last gunman's jaw.

Rolling to a halt the cyborg took stock of what had been damaged. "You _puttana di madre stronzo_!" she shouted, realizing that her helmet was destroyed. In a rage she grabbed her enemy by the neck and began beating him with the broken shell. From a few meters away, Elio watched with amusement. Although he normally discouraged such explicit language from his young charge he had to admit a certain amusement at seeing an adversary being pummeled to death with what essentially was a piece of foam.

Marisa made short work of her victim; in seconds his head hung limp, clearly all life had departed him. She gave a few more blows for good measure before lifting the corpse over her head. Faster than Elio could react, she administered one final insult. "Mari, NO!" barked her Master, but it was too late...the Padania corpse sailed over the guard rail and down the cliff. "Goddamn it all, what the hell were you thinking?" he shouted.

"Did you see what he did to my helmet?"

"Marisa, he was already dead!" Elio stomped over to the guard rail and looked down over the edge. "Ye gods...that's got to be a hundred meter drop!"

With an angry snort Marisa muttered "Too bad he wasn't still alive while he fell."

Her handler was not amused. "Lass, just because he got a lucky shot and ruined your helmet does not mean you should respond by doing something incredibly dumb! Do you think we can just _leave him_ down there?"

"But..." Mari's defense was cut short by the arrival of Hillshire & Triela, pulling to a slow stop in their red Fiat Fiorano. Unaware of the drama going on between members of their partner fratello the pair hopped out of the van jovially.

"We found these on the road about 2 kilometers back" laughed Victor. Triela fished two battered saddlebags out of the van and held them up like trophies. "We figured you might want them back. Are you both alright?"

"We're fine," growled Alboreto, "but we've got a problem. Little Miss Hothead has gone and tossed one of our Padania friends over the cliff!"

"Why would you do a thing like that?" asked the blonde Senior Cyborg.

Mari once again launched into a self defense tack; hoping she would find some sympathy from Triela & Mr. Hillshire. "He shot my helmet and _totally_ destroyed it! I just went...kinda crazy."

Elio snapped angrily "I'll say you did! Go sit in the van while we figure this out!"

"But...!"

"Marisa," he growled in a dire tone "if you don't go sit your little arse down in that van right now I promise you aren't going to be able to sit down for a week!"

With an indignant snort Mari conceded defeat. She stomped her foot once and complied, slamming the van's door behind her. Feeling awkward and unsure of what to say next Hillshire & Triela stayed silent for an uncomfortable span of time. At last the German spoke up; "So...can we recover the body?" Elio said nothing, but motioned toward the guard-rail.

"Oh man..." Triela groaned, "...is that him on that rooftop?"

"Is there more than one dead body down there?" growled Elio. With his angry display at Marisa fresh in her mind Triela cringed.

Victor Hillshire picked up the slack. "We might be in luck. That's a private home and it's 2 o'clock. I don't see any car in the driveway...hopefully whoever lives there isn't home."

"We'll need to work fast," Triela offered, "we have climbing gear in the van. Mari & I can rappel down, hook him up and you guys can drag him up with the van."

Elio objected; "I'll go down. I want to leave Mari alone for a little while to think about her bonehead move."

The blonde girl shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably. Mister Alboreto could be scary at the best of times, and she certainly did not feel like contradicting him when he was in a foul mood. She looked to Hillshire for support but he avoided her glance. It was up to her, so Triela took a deep breath and ventured "Begging your pardon sir, but I really need Marisa helping with this. A cyborg is a much more efficient climber than..." she stumbled over the next few words.

"A man of my age?" muttered Alboreto. Triela said nothing in response. The gray bearded handler sighed and admitted "You're right of course."

Timidly, Triela added "The climbing harnesses we have will fit her better too."

Elio yielded; "Alright, fine. Give me a few minutes to talk to her and get her head back in the game. If you two don't mind getting things set up..."

Fifteen minutes later Triela & Marisa were rapidly slipping down the cliff-side on ropes, kicking off every few meters as they descended to the target. "I really don't know what you were thinking back there, Marisa" panted Triela, once she was sure they were out of earshot of the handlers.

"I know," the younger cyborg muttered, "I just got really mad when my helmet got destroyed. You can't fix a thing like that...it's gone now. Before I knew it I was throwing that _pezzo di merda_ off the cliff."

"Well, yeah, that sure was dumb," replied Triela, "but I meant arguing with Mr. Alboreto back there. I thought he was gonna wring your neck!"

Mari slowed her descent a little and answered in a more subdued tone "I suppose...but Elio should have understood why I was so angry! That helmet was a gift from him. I've had it ever since it was just us two at the Dive Training Center."

"I'm sure he'll get you a new helmet."

"How would you feel if some Padania scumbag trashed one of your bears? One Mr. Hillshire gave you? You'd totally flip shit!" Mari argued, "Just like if Henrietta's violin got smashed or Allison's Lancia was destroyed. How is it any different?"

"You have a point," admitted the older girl, "but the difference is Mr. Hillshire has never threatened to beat my behind out in public right along the side of the road!"

That actually drew a small laugh from Marisa. "Yeah...I can't picture him doing that."

"Personally, I don't want to be around when you push Mr. Alboreto too far" Triela said. "Do you have any idea how uncomfortable that would be for Hillshire & I to watch?"

"Actually, it would probably be a hell of a lot _more_ uncomfortable for me" retorted Marisa with a self deprecating laugh. "Almost there."

Triela keyed her microphone and reported in. "We're 10 meters from the ground, do you see anything?"

"Negative...proceed as planned" ordered Hillshire "Maintain radio silence until you're ready to come back up." The two cyborgs dropped down the final few meters and unclipped their harnesses. Leaving the climbing ropes in position they carefully cut across a well groomed lawn and leapt onto the tiled roof. There lay the battered body of the Padania man, twisted into a grotesque and unnatural position by his fall and impact with the roof.

"You threw him...you deal with the gross stuff" Triela muttered, leaving the dirty work to her sister-cyborg.

"Wimp" Marisa teased as she straightened out his arms and legs, struggling to fit a climbers harness onto him. At that moment they were interrupted.

"Hey! Hello up there!" shouted a voice from below. Triela popped her head over the roof's edge to see an old man with dark sunglasses waving a cane at her. "Don't pretend you aren't up there...I may be half-blind but I can hear you!"

Stumbling for words, Triela tried to handle the crisis politely. "_Ciao signor_...I'm sorry, we didn't know anybody was home. We were climbing and dropped a carabiner on your roof so we came down to get it!"

"Oh! Well I suppose that's okay" the old man replied. "I can't see how you got up on my roof without a ladder...you must be pretty good climbers."

"You could say that" whispered Mari, but she was silenced by a sharp nudge from Triela.

Confident that the strangers on his roof were not robbers the man's tone softened. "Well if you've found your...whatever you were looking for...you can come down and join me for some refreshments." Triela & Marisa were about to decline his offer & render their apologies but he cut them off, insisting "After you've been climbing around on my roof it's the least you can do." The two girls exchanged a quick glance, unsure of how to handle this. A well defined set of combat protocols had been hammered into each of their consciousness but this situation was beyond any preparation or training. Killing the blind man did not seem appropriate, and would result in another inconvenient body to deal with. They only had one extra harness & rope. Running was an equally impossible option, encumbered as they were with a dead Padanian who would need to be rigged up to the climbing ropes before their flight could actually begin. This was a decision both of them would have been happy to defer to their handlers but those men were nearly 100 meters above them and out of radio contact. With only seconds to decide Triela determined that there was but one possible course of action.

"Oh...umm...sure, we'd be delighted to join you."

Eyes wide with horror, Marisa turned and angrily motioned toward the dead body. She lowered her voice to a level she was sure only cybernetic ears could detect and harshly whispered "What the hell do we do with him? Leave him up here?"

"Oh, my...there's three of you up there?" the old blind man called up, "I'm sorry, I thought I'd only heard two. Well come on down all of you...I've just put the tea kettle on, it will be ready soon!"

Hillshire's voice rang out over Triela's radio. "Status report; what's going on down there? I see a civilian."

"Can't talk right now!" was all the reply Triela could afford to give. She turned down her headset volume and looked to Marisa. "That old guy is expecting three of us..._alive_! You got any ideas?"

"Well..." the younger girl mused, "...he already said he was half blind."

"Oh come on, you're not really considering?"

"What choice do we have?" snapped Mari, "You got a better idea?"

Hefting the dead FRF man down off the roof was not difficult for the two cyborgs, but neither were exactly sure of how to proceed from there. "I guess we can set him up in that chair on the patio," Triela decided, "one of us sit on either side of him and move his arms around a little."

"Weirdest puppet show ever" Marisa joked, but the Senior Cyborg was in no mood for levity.

"Get serious! If this guy figures out one of his lunch guests is _dead_..."

"Shhh! Here he comes!"

Slowly carrying a tray laden with tea, cheese, a local sausage & tea biscuits the blind host made his way out to join them. With their deceased friend already seated Mari rushed forward to help him. "Oh, _grazie_. It's a perfect day to sit outside don't you think?"

"_Assolutamente, signor_," agreed Marisa. Triela reached back and bobbed the head of the corpse...an act that made her feel foolish the instant she did it. There was no telling how blind their host was but both girls hoped he was blind enough to fall for this; the stupidest plan either of them had ever been part of.

Against all odds it seemed to be working. The old man poured tea for his three guests, confirming that he did indeed have some modicum of eyesight, but he had not yet noticed that one of his companions did not move much. He made courteous small-talk, asking where the girls were from, how did they enjoy climbing and how long they would be staying in _Alto Adige. _the Agency had prepared them for, and both cyborgs were able to keep up a flowing conversation, giving answers they had rehearsed a thousand times.

The run of luck could not last though. At last their host commented "And what about you, _signor_...you don't seem to say much."

Wide eyed, the two girls struggled for a way to deal with this new challenge. Seeing no other way out Triela prepared to lower her voice and hope she could do a convincing enough imitation of a grown man...but Marisa spoke up first. "Oh, our father lost his voice from smoking cigarettes. He has a machine that helps him speak but he didn't want to bring it climbing in case it got dropped."

"Oh...I'm sorry to hear that, I hope I have not caused offense."

Triela reached back and shook the dead man's head. "No," she giggled nervously, "he gets that all the time."

"What the hell is going on down there?" growled Hillshire, staring through the only set of binoculars. Elio paced like a caged cat, and did not accept a turn with the glasses when his fellow handler offered them. "They're sitting at a table with two civilians...I don't see the body anywhere."

"They're doing _what_?" exclaimed Alboreto, but he quickly reconsidered. "No...wait, I don't want to know." He drew a number of body bags from the back of Hillshire's van and set to work packing up the bodies produced by he & Marisa's attack. Hillshire was left to ponder what was happening on his own.

Triela & Marisa could not believe they were getting away with this, the strangest tea party either of them had ever attended. Their host conversed casually, telling them stories about the mountains and nearby towns, occasionally asking them questions about their own vacation. So far he had not noticed that their adult companion had not partaken of any tea or food...or perhaps he had noticed and was too courteous to insist. Neither cyborg was sure exactly how "blind" the man really was, and both began to fear he'd soon notice the increasing scent of death from the body...they could already smell it.

With one sentence their host made a hasty escape imperative. "My daughter is a nurse at the local old folks home. She's always trying to talk me into moving in there. I've visited, it's a nice place, but I'm just not quite ready to move out yet. She'll be here in about an half-hour...she always checks up on me on her way home."

The cyborgs shot each other a concerned glance. They'd pushed their luck far enough, they absolutely had to get the body out of there before their host's daughter showed up with her two presumably good eyes. "Oh, I wish we could stay," ventured Triela, "but our friends are waiting for us up higher on the mountain."

"Oh that's too bad. My daughter would have loved to meet you. We get so few visitors out here."

"Yeah...sorry" giggled Marisa nervously, "let me help you clean this up."

The blind man objected "Oh I can manage" but Mari left him no choice, gathering up the tea pot and dishes.

With her younger sister distracting the host Triela had her chance to grab the corpse and get it out of there. She slung him on her back, ignoring the blood & gore oozing from his many injuries, and sprinted to the tree line. Just a few meters in hung their climbing lines. She keyed her radio and exclaimed "Hillshire...Mr. Alboreto...I'm rigging the body up right now. Stand by to come up on rope #3!"

"Triela what the hell is going on down there?" demanded her handler.

"No time to explain!" They had been unbelievably lucky so far, but all of that could be dashed if the blind man's daughter arrived early and saw a mangled body being lifted up the cliff behind her father's house. Triela knew it would be hard enough to explain all of this to the two impatient handlers...she had no desire to push her luck any further.

Above her Hillshire put the van in gear and began motoring slowly up the road, keeping both back doors open so he could communicate with Alboreto. The rope was tied to his bumper-hitch, and guided up over the guardrail by Elio. Although he did not have a full 100 meters to drive straight ahead Victor was able to utilize trees & stone walls by the side of the road to his advantage until Elio yelled "_Lentamente...Arresto_!" Hillshire hit the brakes as his older colleague heaved the corpse up over the rail. After their long wait the two men had their hands full; Elio bagging up the last body, Hillshire coiling the hundred meters of climbing line. Just as they finished the girls reached the top, both panting from a rapid climb.

The handlers stood there, waiting for an explanation of events neither of them could remotely fathom. An awkward silence existed for almost thirty seconds before Hillshire finally spoke up. "I have absolutely no idea where I should start..."

"Well," began Triela, "we got down there and located the body just fine, but we encountered a civilian."

"But it was okay," Marisa interjected "because he was blind."

"Sorta blind" Triela clarified. "It didn't seem necessary to kill him...he wasn't aware of the body...so we...um...accepted his invitation to tea." Both handlers stood with jaws agape as the Senior Cyborg tried to explain. "He didn't really leave us any choice, and we didn't want to arouse suspicion. Honestly we didn't know what else to do."

"And where did you leave the dead body while you stopped for tea?" growled Elio.

Laughing nervously, Triela replied "See, that's where it gets a little weird."

"It's not already weird?" muttered Hillshire.

Marisa blurted out the coup de grâce; "The old guy was half-blind, so we just brought the body along with us. We told him he was mute because of cigarette smoking."

In perfect synchronicity both men covered their faces with their palms. "I don't know if I even want to write that in the mission report" groaned Hillshire.

Not sure of what else to say, Marisa held out a package wrapped in wax paper. "The old man sent along some leftovers for our friends. Want some?"


	12. Chapter 12

**By Alfisti**

That evening, Monty sat cross-legged on the fratello's bed, computer on the duvet in front of her, hooked into her iPhone; one of its apps giving her encrypted access to the internet. Despite operating domestically for once, the Blackers had insisted the SWA maintain its usual network of digital drop-boxes and signals for communicating with them. If anything, inside Italy, that security became more critical with more eyes, more likely to have heard rumours of killer teenagers and children, available to observe proceedings. In their line of work, being linked back to the Agency could be disastrous. Now, as that organisation started to recover from its initial mad rush to mobilise, information was starting to trickle through the labyrinth of message boards, blogs and hidden file dumps.

As soon as she returned from the trattoria, the girl had uploaded the photos of their mark at full resolution and priority flagged, for the SWA's analysts to pick up. They had yet to return with any positive identification yet, so for now she trawled through the other information in the hopes it would throw out something useful.

A coded knock and click of the latch caused her to look up, hand sliding under a pillow to where her PPK was currently concealed, and Jethro slipped through the door. Locking it behind himself he moved across the room to sit down on the bed next to his cyborg, putting one hand on the mattress behind her so as to steady himself and lean in close.

"Our friend is back in his room," he said, keeping his voice low. While 'Dino's' room was at the far end of the building, the walls were thin and it didn't hurt to take an extra precaution. "About time too, I thought I'd never get out of that bathroom."

The floor's shared facilities were located directly next to the Blackers' room, with the door facing down the passage. As Jethro had quickly found, the old-style lock allowed anyone with the patience and a mildly stiff constitution a none-too-shabby view of the whole hall. Since the floor's only other occupant was Dino himself, the fratello had taken it in turns to keep an eye out for his return from town. Now they just needed to know if he was worth pursuing, or if he should be simply left alone and they move on.

Scrolling down another page of blog comments, Monty finally found the posting she had been waiting on, dated five minutes previous. Typing the address for the corresponding drop box, she quickly pulled its file onto her laptop. The packet wasn't large and didn't take long to decrypt, but it was enough. Twisting her computer around slightly so her handler could read it over her shoulder as well, she started to skim what was there.

Their mark's full name was Dino Zenegna, a low ranking agent for the FRF. Little more than a glorified foot solider, he was suspected as having been involved with the separatist movement for around three years, but beyond that seemed to be small enough fish that no one had really bothered to find out more.

Finishing the page, Monty glanced at her handler, who replied with a nod. The man may have been small fry, but just right now, the Agency was likely to grasp onto any and all information sources it could lay its hands on.

_Now might just be the time for Dino to find himself in the limelight._

* * *

Night time, the warm glow of the village, as the Blackers had first spied from the base of the valley, now blinkered as its inhabitants turned in. From outside the Hotel Maria, Monty heard the rattle of a diesel engine starting, followed by rumbling tyres as her handler edged away so the fratello could rightfully claim, should something go awry, it had not been here.

Giving him a couple of minutes head start, she slipped quietly out of their room and locked the door, depositing the key in one pocket. Gone now were her boldly pattered dress and high boots of the day, simplified back to charcoal toned skivvy and leggings, flat shoes and paperboy cap: what her handler referred to as her "cat burglar" look. Her PPK also again resided in the small of her back, but this time held in place with the aid of a holster and covered by her top.

Slinking down the hall to Dino's room, the cyborg pressed her ear against his door, listening intently. She held the position for thirty seconds then, satisfied, retrieved her picks and quickly had the lock disengaged.

Stowing the leather wallet again she counted to three and eased the door open...

To the girl's sensitive hearing, music suddenly blared as, startled, her target knocked the sealed canal-phones out of his ears. For half a second neither moved, then recognition flooded across the Italian man's face and he dove for the Beretta lying on his bedside table.

Uttering something unpleasant under her breath, Monty lunged forward with a speed only her artificial muscles could manage, sweeping the gun away from her opponent and sending it clattering to the floor. The distraction was enough however and Dino was off his mattress and crashing through the room's window.

_Bollocks._

Vaulting the bed the girl was just in time to see her mark hit the pavement a story below, roll and sprint off down the street. Not waiting to give anyone a chance to check on the commotion, she hurled herself after him.

The cyborg was fast, faster than any normal human could hope to match, and was blessed with a natural agility and balance which had made her an excellent traceuse, super-human strength or no. However, despite being crammed into the body of a skinny fourteen year old, she still weighed the same as an adult and on the slippery, cobbled streets simple physics all but negated those advantages.

The man ahead wasn't waiting either, and closing on the switchback which had caused the A5 such trouble, suddenly veered toward the central wall and vaulted over it onto the roadway below.

Monty followed suit, tackling a much higher drop and landing as Dino disappeared down one of the narrow pedestrian stairs between buildings.

_That was more like it._

Reaching the top of the stair the SWA agent didn't even bother slowing but hit it at an angle, running out into thin air. Kicking off the far wall for extra thrust she made it to the first landing, absorbing the impact and bunched muscles hurling her down the next flight mid-stride. This time she didn't need the wall and caught her next touchdown with a roll, converting the fall into forward momentum to send her crashing into her target.

Bouncing to a halt just short of the next road, Monty was up with her PPK out and trained on the dazed FRF man, now slumped against a wall.

" I would not move if I were you," stated the girl, slipping into perfect, Agency conditioned Italian.

Looking up at his assailant, and the gun pointed at his forehead, Dino's shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes slowly, letting out a sigh as he did so.

"You know, I thought as soon as you arrived that you might be one of the Government's dolls."

"So why not run then and there?"

Opening his eyes again the Italian was silent, then shook his head slowly,_ "I... I honestly do not know. I told you before that I came here to think... perhaps I was hoping that, if I decided to leave this life behind, it wouldn't come to find _me_ either."_

Monty didn't answer that, instead keeping him covered as she pulled out her phone and, engaging its vampire and scrambler apps, said a couple of words quietly before putting it away again. Minutes later, a white Audi sportsback pulled up at the path's entrance and Jethro emerged, carrying a roll of duct tape.

Glancing briefly at her partner, the girl's attention returned to her captive, _"Come on, I think I know a few people may like a chat."_

**By Prof. Voodoo**

"Jean, sir...two vehicles approaching" Rico reported, "one van, one motorbike."

The Field Commander did not even look up from the maps he had laid out on the villa's 2nd floor deck. "Nothing to be concerned about. That'll be Hillshire & Alboreto." Rico nodded and went back to her self-assigned post watching the road. It was annoying having her there, hovering over what he was doing, so Croce suggested "Rico, I seriously doubt the Padania is going to come back up here now that it's our base of operations...why don't you go downstairs and meet Triela & Marisa when they come in."

"Yes sir!" the blonde girl chirped. That sounded much better than hanging around with Jean and all his boring maps.

Mr. Alboreto parked his red motorcycle under the deck where Jean stood, while Mr. Hillshire drove the van around back. There the support staff had a temporary mourge set up...essentially a shipping container with generator powered refrigeration. Triela hopped out of the front passenger seat of the van and opened up the back doors, where Marisa waited. "So did you get any bad guys?" Rico asked cheerfully.

"Mission accomplished" reported Triela, patting the three body bags, "give us a hand with these, okay?" With little effort the three cyborgs were able to carry one corpse each...Silvia saw where they were headed and hurried to open the cooler door for them. "Thanks" Marisa said, setting her bag down on the floor next to a sign written in magic marker by Ferro's unmistakable handwriting; _ARRIVI NUOVI _. "So have you two seen any action?"

"We did!" replied Silvia cheerfully, but then she just stood there smiling without explaining anything else. A few moments of uncomfortable silence passed before Rico elaborated.

"Petra & Mr. Alessandro got pinned down in an old farmhouse, so we went to go take out the bad guys. Jean sent me along too, even though he was too busy to go himself."

"I see" said Triela.

By this time Hillshire & Alboreto walked up. The older man said "We're going to check in with Croce...why don't you two take the opportunity to wash up & take a break. Don't get too comfortable though, we might be headed right back out in a few minutes." Triela looked to her handler, who nodded in agreement.

Rico grabbed the new arrivals by the arm. "Come on...Mr. Darme is cooking American style hamburgers in the kitchen."

"Oh, we just ate" Triela replied with a little laugh.

Puzzled, Silvia asked "You did?"

Marisa laughed too and added "Yeah, long story."

"Weird story if you ask me" opined Triela.

* * *

Elio & Victor headed upstairs to where Jean had his maps layed out. "We got the car that the UAV drone spotted" reported Hillshire, "three Padanians, all dead."

"That's the way I like them" muttered Jean grimly. "How long has it been since you've had any rest?"

"About 16 hours I think" answered Alboreto.

Croce sighed and looked at his roster of available fratelli. "I'm going to need both of you for one last thing and then I'll cut you loose for a few hours of rest. Victor; we think there's a small group in these hills near this highway." He pointed out a location on the map. "Grab a TETRA radio set and UMP for Triela and see if you can flush them out. Giuseppe & Henrietta will come along to back you up. He already has copies of the maps."

"Got it" Hillshire replied with a nod.

"Take the van you already have." Jean turned to Elio and continued; "We're tight on vehicles...you have your motorcycle, right?"

Alboreto shook his head and answered "I do, but Mari's helmet got destroyed on that last job. She needs a new one before she can ride with me."

"Fuck..." groaned Jean, snapping his pencil in two. "Okay, okay...I'll get Alpha to drive you down to the ferry dock on Lake Santa Giustina. Keep an eye on things until a Section One team arrives to relive you. It shouldn't be more than a few hours, then get a hotel room...get some rest, we'll send a car for you in the morning."

"We're that low on vehicles?" muttered Elio.

"We all came up in helicopters...nobody has their own car and there's very few Agency vans to go around. I'm tempted to call Blacker in just because he has that big Audi he could be ferrying people around in."

Alboreto chuckled. "I'm sure Monty would absolutely love that."

"You'll find Alpha downstairs in the basement, trying to make sense of some excavations the Padans did. He has keys to one of the Lancia hatchbacks. Oh...and before you leave write down what Marisa's helmet size is. I'll send Nihad into the city tonight to get her a replacement."

"Good luck finding a bike shop open at night."

"I don't care if he has to break a window if it means you two can use your own transportation again" groaned Jean, "this is fucking ridiculous...trying to cover an area this size with only 4 Agency cars."

Elio picked up the broken fragment of Jean's pencil and scratched a number as he spoke aloud "Size; Youth medium or adult small...nothing pink or she'll never stop complaining about it."

"If that's all they have in stock," growled Jean, "she's getting a damn pink one."


	13. Chapter 13

**By MP5**

In the Italian side of the airspace above the Austrian/Italian border, an Aermacchi SF.260 flew over the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, its current pilot searching for any sign of Padania activity while expressing their discontent with the lack of armaments on the aircraft.

"I really wish I had my Mustang instead," groused the Japanese teen girl at the controls into her headset. "I feel naked flying without any sort of ordnance."

"Like the Stones said, Ryo;" replied an Australian-accented voice in her ear. _"'You can't always get what you want.' Besides, you don't go on recon flights as a civilian aircraft if it clearly has guns and missiles. Telegraphs your intentions and all. How's the search going?"_

"Nothing yet, Jennifer." Ryo replied. "I'm going into grid Bravo One-Five now, gonna bring it down low."

"Be careful not to get so close they can actually hit you."

"Please. Like a bunch of rattled Padania would have anything that can actually hit me." Ryo snorted.

"If you fly close enough to the ground, they can bring you down with concentrated small-arms fire. _Please__ be careful, Ryo."_ Jennifer pleaded.

"I will."

Ryo descended to 2400 meters above the snow-covered ground of the mountains that swooshed by below her. Looking ahead, shapes in the snow caught her eye. As she approached closer, she could make out the remnants of a vacated campsite, with what looked to be some weapons crates serving as benches to sit on around the still-smoldering campfire. Footprints led away from the campsite towards the peak, and Ryo banked the plane to follow the trail.

Coming up on the peak of the mountain she was investigating, the footprints suddenly ended right before the drop into the valley. Wondering where to go next as she flew past, Ryo yelped in alarm when something began thumping into the belly of her plane. Pulling up, she saw muzzle flashes in her cockpit's rearview mirror as a squad of Padanians opened fire on her with heavy weapons, assault rounds slicing into the unarmored fuselage of her airplane as she made to evade any more incoming fire. Turning around, Ryo desperately went to maximum throttle, looking to get out of the area. Heading back over the mountain, she saw a flash in her rearview mirror before her Aermacchi shook violently with the force of a large explosion and bits of the tailplane began flying off, quickly rendering her plane uncontrollable as it began to dive towards the ground, with only enough time to radio that she was going down.

"Mayday, Mayday! Sparrow Five-Two is hit, Sparrow Five-Two is going down! Attempting emergency landing in grid area Bravo One-Six!"

Ripping off her headset as Jennifer attempted to contact her, Ryo struggled to bring down her stricken aircraft as gently as possible, a Herculean task under the circumstances as the Aermacchi dove towards the earth like a descending lawn dart, and it took all Ryo had to barely get the plane to take a less extreme descent to the ground, which rushed into view fast as the altimeter spun crazily backwards. Ryo managed to get the plane into a diagonal landing approach, but was going too fast to land completely safely. Cutting power in an attempt to slow down the aircraft, Ryo held on for dear life as the Aermacchi finally plowed into the powdery snow, but at the speed which it traveled, there was no way to get it to stop quickly, and Ryo's eyes widened as the downed plane sped towards a small boulder with no way to steer out of its path, Ryo could only brace herself as best as she could as her plane finally struck the boulder at an angle. The entire fuselage became airborne for a few seconds, as if it were trying to take to the skies again, before nosing down suddenly and striking the snow on the ground at an angle severe enough to cause the fuselage to tumble end over end, shedding more parts of the actual plane itself, spraying leaking fuel in nearly every direction. Inside the cockpit, Ryo was helpless, still strapped tightly into her seat with the world going mad around her, tossing about as if inside a clothes dryer, objects starting to bounce around the cabin until she felt an impact on her head, making everything go dark instantly.

"―arrow Five-Two…do…-ead me? Sparrow…-re you alive?"

Ryo began to come to, unaware of how long she had been out, only aware that she was somehow still alive, but now oriented on her side, some weight resting on her right side as she remained strapped into her seat. Something warm came from her forehead, and after reaching up and touching it, she looked at the hand she drew away, covered in bright red blood. She was bleeding, and now that she was aware she was bleeding, her body was definitely in pain, she realized, and she could not feel her legs.

"Sparrow Five-Two, do you read me? Come in, Sparrow Five-Two…"

Ryo looked for the source of the voice, slightly muffled as it was, before spotting her headset, which was somehow still functioning.

"Ryo, if you're there, please answer me…" the Australian voice on the radio pleaded, sounding as if on the verge of tears. Jennifer. Ryo weakly lifted an arm to grab the headset and squeezed the transmit button.

"This is Ryo…" the cyborg answered with some effort. "I just came to… not sure exactly where I am, but I've―I've crashed. Padania… hit me with some kind of rocket, came down hard. Bleeding a little, can't feel my legs.

"Thank god you're all right, Ryo!" Jennifer sighed with relief on the other end. _"If you can't walk, hunker down, stay warm, and stay put. We're sending a rescue team with Annette ASAP."_

Ryo was finally coming to grips with her situation, and realized that whoever shot her down would likely be on their way to the crash site to check for survivors.

"You better hurry." Ryo spoke into her mic. "I can't move very far," Ryo paused to confirm this by trying to wiggle her toes and feet and getting no movement or feeling in response, "―and the bad guys are probably on their way here."

"Acknowledged. Hide as best as you can, use the fuselage as cover, and if you have a weapon handy, only use it if absolutely necessary. Hang in there Ryo, help is on the way. Out."

As the radio stopped transmitting, Ryo turned her attention to getting out of the cockpit. Grasping the release handles, Ryo grunted with effort to slide the glass canopy back, blasting herself with chilly mountain air as she exposed herself to the elements. Finally turning to whatever was pressing into her right side, she pulled the object―a rifle bag of some sort―off of her person and threw it to the snow. Steeling herself, she undid her harness, and gravity took hold, dropping her lamely out of the cockpit and into the snow outside. Ryo shivered slightly, thankful her flight suit was insulated, but knew that she couldn't stay in the snow for too long without shelter or rescue, dreading what might happen if she was stuck out here when daylight faded.

Pulling herself over to her rifle bag, she unzipped it to reveal a CAR-15 carbine equipped with a Trijicon ACOG sight along with a tactical vest loaded with at least 12 30-round magazines for the weapon plus a Springfield Armory Operator .45 ACP handgun with a suppressor and several spare magazines. Hopefully, both would be enough to fend off the forthcoming enemy onslaught if rescue didn't come before they did. Pulling the weapons and ammunition from the bag and setting them aside, Ryo opened the bag fully until it became an improvised shooter's mat which she then sat upon to limit her contact with the snow before donning the vest and loading a magazine into each weapon, chambering the Springfield first before locking the first round into the CAR-15 and holding it close as she sat against the remnants of her plane.

Now came the long wait…


	14. Chapter 14

**By Odon**

Frustrated with the slow pace of her handler, Triela forged ahead under the guise of reconnaissance, using the ancient mule trails that threaded through the pine forest cloaking the sides of the valley. She kept to a steady jog despite the weight of the UMP and its ammunition hidden in her knapsack, biomechanical limbs and superoxygenated blood giving her an endurance beyond any alpine climber. Triela slowed only when her cyborg senses detected others ahead. She answered their cheerful greetings in Italian or German or French, comparing skin texture and facial construction against blurred images captured on CCTV in the aftermath of bomb atrocities, their acoustic pattern to voices plucked from the airwaves by the AISI. Every fifteen minutes Triela stopped to drink from her canteen and check in with Hilshire on the encrypted radio. Her handler's voice seemed harsh and impersonal, encoded and decoded over the electronic circuits. Always the same message: no contact.

She couldn't hear the Carabinieri roadblocks or the units sweeping the valley below. They operated on different frequencies. There was no sign of the UAV either; only flashes of red from a paraglider riding the thermals, the sun filtered through green foliage, the blue-grey tinge of distant mountain ranges. The war against Padania seemed far away, an obscure conflict existing only on television between game shows and crass advertising.

A hiking trail lead to the summit, with marker posts to tempt a city-born Padanian used to signs and sealed roads. If the terrorists had the endurance they could climb the mountain and come down in the next valley, bypassing the dragnet. Triela turned up the path without stopping to consult the tourist map painted on a nearby board. She knew every trail and contour of the valley; not in confusing multi-coloured graphics overlaid on her cyborg vision like in American sci-fi movies, but a perfect recall of the survey maps she'd studied during their hasty briefing in a speeding Agency van. An eidetic memory that mocked her futile attempts to remember the names of her bears, heroics in Amsterdam, the look on Hilshire's face when he first laid eyes on her.

But she encountered no-one on the path as it zigzagged up the slope through tangled undergrowth pierced by outcrops of black limestone and triangular wooden stanchions sinking into the leaf mould, the rotting remnants of cableways built almost a century before. The air grew thinner and the gradient steep as she gained height; Triela slowed her pace but did not stop. Eventually the growl of trucks on the highway and the murmur of hikers and climbers faded even from her enhanced hearing. There was only the crunch of pebbles under her boots, branches creaking against one another, the sound of her own breath - cold and clear in her throat unlike the polluted taint of the cities. Perhaps after the mission was over she could talk Hilshire into staying a while, act the tourist like normal people. Find something to share besides work and bouts of awkward silence.

She stopped to drink from her water bottle, then clicked the bone-induction earpiece hidden under one of her twintails. "Triela to Hilshire, radio check, over."

The hiss of static was her only reply. Triela slid off her knapsack, her sweat-soaked back cooling in the mountain air. She opened the side pouch and removed the TETRA set - checked the frequency, battery charge and headset connection.

"Triela to Hilshire. Radio check, over!"

A growling rustle - the wind blowing through millions of pine needles - swept over the forest in an invisible wave. The world faded, trees and bushes vanishing into a grey fog. Triela gazed about in surprise, shivering from the sudden drop in temperature. She had climbed so high that clouds were sweeping around her, breaking on the mountain like a silent floodtide. The effect was surreal; the thin air combined with her superoxygenated blood made Triela feel light-headed. She seemed suspended in this formless void, drifting free in time and space.

Sound brought her down to Earth. Distant but distinct; the staccato thud of a heavy-calibre machine gun. Triela knew the audio signature of every weapon in the Carabinetti arsenal. This wasn't one of them.

Contact.

"Triela to Hilshire! Can you hear me, over!"

No response. She switched channels, hoping to pick up one of the other fratello. Just static.

Triela shoved the radio back in its pouch, pulled on her knapsack and yanked the straps tight. Took a step and stumbled into a pothole. She turned in the opposite direction and her boots squelched in mud. Somehow she'd gone off the trail.

_'Stay calm,'_ Triela thought. _'You're out of range, or in a radio blind spot. Wait till the fog clears, then walk back dow-YEEARGCH!'_

Triela slapped a hand to her face, choking on acrid bile. From all around her rose a putrid stench; the all-too-familiar reek of rotting flesh and human excrement magnified a hundredfold, like those Camorra victims they'd found abandoned in a mile-long mound of illegally-dumped garbage. But that was in Marigliano, where officials could be bribed and locals intimidated, not here in the Dolomites with well-heeled tourists to offend.

More distant gunfire, and the crump of an explosion. She turned towards the sound and saw the man standing a few feet away.

Despite her augmented faculties there had been no warning of his approach; he'd materialised out of the fog like a ghost. She saw the gun in his hands and the SIG was in hers without having to think. Tirela aimed at his chest, staring in surprise at her target.

A man of around Hilshire's age though looking much older, his face hagged and unshaven, the eyes red-rimmed with fatigue. Grimy fingers clutched an antique bolt-action rifle. He wore a peaked cap, tunic and trousers of greyish-green wool, patched and repaired many times. A belt lined with cracked leather pouches. Strips of cloth wrapped his calves, encrusted with his boots in reddish clay. He gaped at Triela as if not believing what he saw - this fresh-faced girl-child in pigtails, pointing a weapon at him.

"Don't move, Padania!"

His reply was in an incomprehensible dialect of Italian.

"Drop the rifle, now!"

The man shook his head, rubbing his eyes as if trying to dismiss an illusion. He turned and staggered off into the mist.

"Wha- HEY! STOP!" Triela chased after him but her boots slipped from under her. She pitched forward, rolling as she instinctively tucked her pistol into her body to protect it. There was no undergrowth to break her fall; her body flailed through mud and filth as she tumbled down the steep slope, bouncing painfully on sharp rocks and splintered bone. She snatched at a tree stump only to gouge her hand on metal shards embedded in the wood, smacked her head on a half-buried cylinder, careened to a halt in a barbed-wire fence constructed by a madman - a nightmarish tangle of iron posts and zinc-coated wire gleaming through clotted gore, hung with flesh like a butcher bird's lair. Disturbed from their feast flies attacked Triela en masse, swarming into her mouth and ears and nostrils. Cursing in three languages she struggled to free herself, her long hair caught on the barbs. Triela slid her bayonet from the small of her back, hacked ruthlessly at her pigtails. The strands snapped and she stumbled backwards, tripped over the cylinder she'd struck her head on...and froze in place.

Triela recognised the object from her IED training. An artillery shell, half buried in the mud.

_'Oh...shit.'_

Triela edged away from the deadly speedbump, sliding the bayonet into the ground to check for further unexploded munitions in her path. Insects bit her face and neck, feasted on the dried blood that glistened on the rocks, the sweat and foulness coating her body.

_'Definitely shit.'_

The fog had rolled away as she worked. Now Triela could see she'd landed in a crater-like depression slick with soapy red clay, murky water pooling at the bottom. Detritus surrounded her: the decaying carcass of a mule, a tangled mess of telephone wire, the remains of a wooden cartwheel. She tried not to think about what else might have been dumped here. Corpses from cemeteries bulldozed for Mafia construction projects, decades-old ordinance stockpiled against a Soviet invasion that never occurred, the toxic by-product of hospitals and factories and nuclear reactors. It wasn't as if she was going to live long enough to die of cancer. But if she got sick, how much time it would cost her off-mission? How many months would the surgery deduct from her already-rationed lifespan?

She heard it again, remembering the instructor's voice as he counted off the bursts: _one-thousand-and-two-thousand... one-thousand-and-two-thousand... one-thousand-and-two-thousand._ Whoever was firing that machine gun had military training. It sounded much closer now.

Triela rolled onto her chest and crawled to the rim of the crater, wishing her cybernetics would dull her olfactory system like it did her pain receptors. Someone had used this place as a toilet quite recently. Couldn't they even bury their own filth?

Triela slowly lifted her head over the edge and saw

_'Hilshire!'_

the aftermath of disaster - an earthquake or an atomic explosion that had scoured the entire valley. For a moment Triela couldn't process the information; the contours were those she had memorised but everything else had changed. The pine forest reduced to shattered stumps, lush greenery to a lunar landscape of craters and barbed wire and so many bodies of men and mules, those dead and those still alive who crawled like ants up mountainsides festooned with telephone wires and cableways, caves and mule tracks hacked into the rock, huts pinioned to narrow ledges halfway up cliffs. On the valley floor a dirt road wound through fallow fields and empty hamlets; the multi-lane highway, the pretty postcard village, the sports climbers and paragliders - all had vanished. Triela's mind teetered on a precipice, logic and emotion warring against the sociopathic clarity of her conditioning, the data crammed into her brain every millisecond by her cyborg senses.

_'I'm insane,'_ Triela realised with terrifying certainty. She should have seen it coming: the hallucinations, the encroaching memory loss, the growing obsession with her handler. Angelica had gone the same way. She should end this now; put a bullet through her eye before her psychosis got Hilshire killed.

She looked down at the SIG 232 still clutched in her hand, smeared with clotted mud and slick gore.

Her training reasserted itself. Clean your weapon.

Triela off her knapsack and unzipped the top flap to give herself a clean surface on which to work. The magazine dropped into her hand. She racked the slide, catching the ejected cartridge before it rolled into the mud. The familiar routine was soothing; Triela could almost forget the squalor she crouched in, where it not for the flies and the stench and the well-gorged rats that scurried too close for comfort.

_'Am I in Hell?'_

She pushed down the take-down lever, drew back the slide until it detached.

_'For what mortal sin?'_

Then the recoil spring...

Not murder, certainly. She had only killed enemies of the State. Presumably torture and extraordinary rendition were covered too. Of the Seven Cardinal Sins however...

_'Pride: the hubris behind my defeat at Pinocchio's hands. Envy: of Roberta Guellfi. Wrath: plenty of that...'_

Triela threaded a cloth through the eye of the cleaning rod, pushed it down the barrel.

_'Gluttony: my desire to cling to life at Hilshire's expense. Sloth: neglecting my duty to protect him. And let's not forget...'_

The cleaning cloth was blackened with cordite. An accidental discharge as she rolled down the slope?

_'Suicide...?'_

A bugle blared its strident call. Triela doubted it was to open the Pearly Gates for her.

In sixteen seconds Triela had reassembled and reloaded the pistol, sliding it back into her shoulder holster. She took the UMP from her pack, unfolded the buttstock and inserted a magazine, but did not chamber a round. Cradling the submachine gun in her elbows, she leopard-crawled up to the rim, making sure to look over a different place this time.

Armed soldiers climbed the mountain. Almost shoulder-to-shoulder in a line several hundred strong, they laboured up the steep incline, slipping and falling in the mud, clutching at boulders and tree stumps and corpses for support. They wore grey-green uniforms like the man she'd seen earlier, an occasional steel helmet among the soft kepis. Bayonets were fixed to each rifle, and out in front walked an officer holding a sabre, the scabbard clutched in his other hand like an alpenstock. The blade flashed in the sun as he pointed to the summit, and gave a shout which was echoed by every man behind.

_"Avanti Savoia!"_

_"SAVOY!"_

Triela heard a distant rumble, then a whistle growing louder and louder, rising to a shrill peak. The ground boiled then erupted in geysers of earth and fire. Triela threw herself into the muck, hearing the familiar ultrasonic signature of flying shrapnel, the screams of those torn apart yet still alive. More shells came shrieking down, bursting in mid-air, scything the mountainside with red-hot splinters. Yellow-black explosions ripped apart limestone, filling the sky with choking dust and lethal shards of rock. The line wavered then quickly reformed, men closing ranks and continuing their implacable advance. Their commander shouted encouragement, brandishing his sabre against the onslaught of death like a man threatening a hurricane with an umbrella.

_"Avanti Savoia!"_

_"SAVOY!"_

"GET DOWN!" screamed Triela, knowing they couldn't possibly hear. "DO YOU THINK YOU'RE ON PARADE? TAKE COVER, DAMN YOU!"

Machine guns erupted from enfilade positions further up the mountain, enveloping the attackers in a deadly crossfire. The sabre fell. Men tumbled down the slope, the dead and the living; crawled about in confusion, scratching holes with their bare hands. They seemed ignorant of the most basic infantry tactics - of fire-and-movement, of how to take cover from the falling shells. Their officers struck them with pistols and the flats of their swords, driving them towards the barbed wire like cattle. They hacked futilely at the entanglement with wire-cutters and hatchets, shoved in iron pipes with sputtering fuses that failed to explode, tried to tear out the posts with their bare hands. The machine guns found them, and mortar shells, and grenades and tear gas and gouts of burning oil that streaked from loopholes hidden in the rock.

"MADNESS!" screamed Triela.

Out of the clouds of black smoke marched another line of soldiers, and another behind them, hunched forward as if bullets and shrapnel could be shrugged off like rain.

_"Avanti Savoia!"_

_"SAVOY!"_

Another rumble and the shriek of incoming shells, this time from the valley floor. Triela watched in horror as the attacking soldiers vanished in the holocaust of their own artillery fire, the line of explosions marching up the slope, smashing friend and foe with the callous indifference of an angry titan.

"STOP! STOP! STOP!"

Triela cringed at the bottom of the shell-hole, mouth wide and hands pressed to her ears. She knew carbombs and booby traps, the danger over before you had time to be afraid. This was a hell that went on and on, waves of pressure pounding on her skull that deafened her own screams; Triela soiled herself and cried for a mother whose name she did not know.

_Declaring that the failure of the attack was due to a lack of aggressive spirit among the soldiers (caused by defeatist propaganda spread by Socialist politicians in Rome) the brigade commander had three of the survivors selected by lot and executed by the Carabinieri. Journalists at General Cadorna's headquarters knew better than to report the illegal decimation, but made much of the claim that an angel had been seen on the mountainside - a young girl with beautiful hair wielding a sword, calling for the liberation of South Tyrol from the Hapsburg oppressor._

After hours of exhaustive climbing and searching, Hilshire found his cyborg curled up in a hollow sprinkled with blue gentians, her dusky skin unusually pallid and her eyes wild before they glazed over from the conditioning drug he injected into her arm.

"I slipped and fell," was the only explanation Triela gave. "I think I'm going crazy."

"Makes the two of us."

"I didn't even see the enemy. They killed so many..."

"Don't worry. Jose and Henrietta got them. Two dead, one wounded. No casualties on our side. Turns out they never left the highway."

Triela stared at him, confusion evident on her face, then said quietly, "That's good."

The air smelt of pine resin, tinged with iodine as Hilshire treated her cuts and bruises. Triela avoided his gaze, her cheeks red from the cold or the physical contact.

"What happened to your hair?" he asked, when the silence got too uncomfortable.

"I-It got caught on some branches. I had to cut myself free."

Hilshire tore the wrapper off a gauze bandage. "I was thinking...these mountains, they really are beautiful. How about when this mission's over we stay behind and do some sightseeing?"

"No."

Triela pulled free of his grasp, slung the knapsack over her shoulders. Without waiting for her handler she walked straight up the slope towards the hiking trail.

"Dummkopf!" Hilshire muttered under his breath.

He packed away the first aid kit and shouldered his own pack, following at a slower pace, using bushes and branches to haul himself up. Intent on his cyborg in case she fell again, Hilshire took no notice of the detritus churned up by their passage: some rusty shards of metal, a strand of barbed wire, and an old cartridge case.


	15. Chapter 15

**By Kiskaloo**

**ADIGE RIVER VALLEY**

_I should have worn pants,_ Kara mentally reflected as another breeze flowed off the snow-covered peaks and up her skirt. _I thought it was supposed to be spring? _

That belief in what season they were in had driven her choice of a frilled skirt, long-sleeve sweater and heavy leather boots with fur tops and an aggressive tread pattern.

"Tea break," Michele stated and Kara set down the weapons case before sitting on a rock outcropping, her legs firmly closed. Michele shrugged out of his backpack and removed from it a vacuum flask and two metal cups into which he poured decaffeinated green tea. As he allowed the ambient air to cool the drink, Michele put a pair of high-powered binoculars to his eyes and scanned the terrain ahead of them.

"See anything?" Kara asked.

"Not yet. We should still be ahead of them," her handler replied. While it was unlikely they would come across any non-combatants, he wore a heavy green jacket sporting the insignia of the Landesforstdienst: the provincial forestry service of the Autonomous Province of Bolzano. If asked, he would explain he was performing a survey and that Kara was a student at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano studying Agricultural Science.

The Pagani _fratello_ found themselves inside the the Texelgruppe Nature Park above the commune of Parcines hunting a band of hikers making their way north towards the Austrian border. A twisting dirt road led up from the village of Tabia, dead-ending at a dry streambed that would soon be wet as the snows higher up the mountains melted. Aerial reconnaissance during the evening identified a large heat bloom of a campfire and closer inspection resolved multiple heat sources.

Like most teens, Kara was not an early riser and she had not welcomed being rousted just before dawn and driven up another dry streambed in a Carabinieri Land Rover Defender to put them above and ahead of the group. Their orders were to make a positive identification and if they were indeed Padania, to eliminate them. To that end, she carried a total station case that contained a PGM Hecate II anti-material rifle. While Kara normally used the Barrett XM500, Brian McDonnell had checked it out for a mission down at Lago di Molveno and they had yet to return to the field headquarters. Kara knew the Hecate well and had successfully eliminated two targets at the better part of a kilometer during a mission in Palermo.

"Do you think the survivors are going to ground?" Kara asked. Estimates were that Section Two had captured or killed roughly half of those who had escaped from the Hilshire and Alboreto _fratelli_ at the safe house.

"Possibly," Michele replied. "Between the Army and the State Police, the Brenner Pass is locked down and the Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road is still closed due to snow and ice. There is a road that runs just along the tree line so they may be trying to meet up in one of the villages and then continue up over the peaks into Austria."

The aerial surveillance drone had been re-tasked to assist in the rescue and recovery of Warhawk's downed aircrew, leaving Michele and Kara to guestimate both where their targets were and where they should intercept them.

Two hours later found the pair of cyborg and handler nestled in a copse of trees overlooking a broad plain with a glacier-fed stream running through it. Lacking the space to carry ghillie suits, they instead were covered in a basic forest camouflage blanket that when combined with the shade provided by the copse, effectively broke up their outline when viewed from beyond a couple hundred meters.

"I don't think they're non-combatants, but I can't see any obvious weaponry on them," Kara reported as she observed the progress of the group of five men through the Hécate's standard 10x telescope.

"They're probably trying to not expose themselves," Michele replied beside her as he used the integrated digital camera of a Carl Zeiss PhotoScope 85 to snap pictures which he then reviewed on the fold-out OLED screen.

"Bingo," he noted a moment later as he identified the clear outline of STANAG magazines on webbing peeking through an open jacket on one of the men. "These folks are not friendlies."

"There is no way I'm going to be able to use sound masking," Kara noted. "I'm going to have to wait until they're well and truly out in the open before I engage them to make sure none can shelter themselves."

"Just remember Monte Pellegrino. Take deep breaths, focus and take them out," Michele offered before donning hearing protection.

"Yes, sir."

Kara slipped her own hearing protection on and then closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She adjusted herself on the thick shooting mat and tracked the aiming reticle on the figure trailing about 20 meters behind. She tracked him as he fell further back and she noticed the laces of his right boot were untied, the slipping of the shoe on his foot slowing him. When he stopped and kneeled down, she settled the reticle on his head, counted to five and pulled the trigger.

The Hécate barked and just over a second later the target's head exploded in a pink mist. The corpse slowly toppled over like a building whose foundation had eroded. Kara's arm blurred as she cycled the bolt and slammed another .50BMG round into the chamber.

Miraculously, none of the other men noticed the shot, perhaps because they were close together and animatedly talking. Kara picked the lead and fired just as he turned his chest to face away from her and point to the snow-capped peaks beyond. The bullet ventilated his chest and even though there was no more heart left to pump blood, enough remained in the head and legs that the target took another four steps before dropping like a puppet whose strings had been cut.

The three other Padania stood still, stunned into immobility as their brains attempted to process and react to what they had just witnessed. Kara used this delay to drop another target and the final two bolted in opposite directions.

"Not going to make it easy, I see," she growled. She locked onto the fleeter of the two and dropped him. The final one, perhaps driven mad from fear, withdrew a submachine gun and started to randomly spray the area as he screamed something incomprehensible due to distance. Kara cut off his diatribe by blowing his left lung out his back.

"Fantastic, partner," Michele said, placing his hand on Kara's shoulder and giving her a quick squeeze. She replied with a large grin and pumped fist. They rose to their feet, withdrew their HK P2000SK pistols, and trotted out into the plain to rifle the bodies for identifying documents before dragging them back to the tree line and marking them for future extraction.

* * *

**By Prof. Voodoo**

Elio awoke, and for a few moments felt caught between the dream he'd been having and wondering where he was at the moment. As reality numbly poured back into his consciousness the dream faded; lost forever in those fleeting moments between sleep and waking.

On the one big bed of the hotel room Marisa still slumbered. He did not wake her, slipping off the mattress as quietly as possible. She'd been up late last night. Elio had found himself feeling a bit guilty for getting so cross at her earlier in the day (_after the corpse incident_) so once they had been relived from their surveillance duty at the ferry dock on Lake Santa Giustina, and checked into a hotel until Jean could send a ride for them, he consented to his cyborg staying up late to watch the midnight movie on Sky Italia. The flick had been another one of those American comic-book based action films that were so popular lately. It made Alboreto cringe a bit...in his opinion a silly miasma of overdone special effects and mediocre writing that made for a banal motion picture, but Marisa seemed to enjoy it so he indulged her without complaint. It had been a long day, so Elio took the opportunity to get to sleep early. Mari lay on her belly at the foot of the bed, the television volume turned down low enough that it would not bother her Master (_but well within the capabilities of her enhanced cyborg hearing_).

He checked his Agency mobile phone; no morning messages meant Jean still had not found a tasking for he & Mari. Elio actually hoped Croce was getting some sleep of his own...the Field Commander had a habit of neglecting his own needs in favor of a single minded focus on the mission. Ferro was with him; that set Alboreto's mind at ease to some extent. The no-nonsense ex-policewoman had no qualms about putting her foot down and telling her superior when he'd pushed himself too far. Of course, that led Elio to worry about whether Ferro had gotten any rest.

It was just past 8am. Elio washed up and scrawled a quick note for Marisa, leaving it on the night stand. _0806;_ _I've gone out for a walk...will be back soon. You know my number if you need me._

The air was brisk outside, with a noticeable wind blowing in off the lake. Alboreto was interested in more than sightseeing and getting a bit of morning exercise; he was eager to check on the Section One pair that had been on duty all night watching the ferry dock...perhaps he could relive them for an hour so they could get some coffee & breakfast. What he saw when he rounded the corner and came to the dock annoyed him and ruined his good mood.

The Section One team was not the pair that had relived he & Marisa last evening. The new pair stood out like sore thumbs...standing together in nearly identical coats, one with binoculars and one with a high end digital camera. Elio groaned. These two could not have looked more like government agents if they'd been auditioning for a movie. With a scowl on his face he stomped over to straighten them out. "You two must be the Section One team watching this ferry" he growled.

"Yes, _buongiorno_" the heavier man greeted him, holding out his hand. Elio resited the urge to slap it away.

"Do you know who _I_ am?" he snapped. The two Sec One agents looked at each other, puzzled, and had to shake their heads indicating the answer was _no_. "Then how the bloody hell should I know you're the Section One team? Could it be because you're advertising to the whole fucking city?"

"Eh..." the thinner man muttered as his face flushed red, "...we're not actually field agents. We're from the main Rome office, they just told us to watch the ferry for possible Padania suspects."

"Well you can be sure the Padans are watching you, and you're making it easy for them! Use some damn common sense. Don't stand together...try to look like you're doing something else...quit dressing alike and for god's sake quit pointing those glasses and that camera at everyone who gets on the ferry!"

Elio resolved to sit down with Chief Draghi once everyone got back to headquarters and develop a protocol for training office staff who may find themselves called out on field missions. Doubtless that would lead to an argument with Pieri...who despised Draghi on both personal and professional levels. It was a feud that vexed Alboreto immensely...Lorenzo & Draghi both had over 30 years experience in clandestine service and yet they behaved like schoolyard rivals sometimes.

After situating the two hapless Section One office agents in better positions...one pretending to browse magazines at a news stand, the other feeding pigeons from a sidewalk bench...both with a good view of the ferry dock, Elio felt himself now in need of coffee. He wandered back up the street nearer the hotel and found a _panetteria_ that looked promising. To the clerk's disappointment the grey haired customer took only coffee, passing on the wide assortment of fresh baked bread & _pasticcini_ she had on offer. Elio knew Marisa would mope for most of the morning if she found out he'd had breakfast without her, so it was worth waiting. They had a good looking selection...he'd bring her back here later.

The coffee warmed Alboreto and improved his mood, restoring him to the positive attitude he'd felt before his frustrating experience with the two Section One nitwits. However, on an empty stomach it also went straight through him...its effects amplified by having just taken his morning diuretic pill (_for high blood pressure_) a half hour before. Feeling not as young as he used to be, Elio felt the need to find a bathroom.

The _panetteria_ had a surprisingly large men's room for such a small business and Elio had it all to himself. Many things were on his mind as he stood in the stall and relieved himself. _Should I tell Jean about the idiots Section One is sending to watch transportation hot spots? How shall I approach Draghi about those training protocols? Should I head back to the hotel and get Mari now or let her get a little more sleep? Wonder if Jean or Ferro have gotten any sleep?_

Alboreto hardly noticed the sound of two men coming into the bathroom behind him. He knew they were there of course; a lifetime of watching his back made that second nature...but they were not among the dozen things at the forefront of his mind. As he finished something caught the old spy's attention, or rather, the lack of something. He'd heard two men enter behind him but now there was no noise. No water running, no flushing, no sound of urine hitting porcelain.

"Oh _shite._" Elio whipped around just in time to deflect a blow to his head but not avoid it entirely. He was knocked over in the stall and slammed his right knee into the toilet bowl painfully. His attacker pressed the advantage he had, going after Alboreto with a club, but Elio managed to lift himself almost horizontal and launch a kick with his good leg. It connected with a knee, collapsing the attacker. Rather than scramble out of the stall (and straight into a waiting ambush by the second man) Elio dropped down and rolled across the filthy bathroom floor, under the barrier that surrounded the stall.

It worked; the second man was caught off guard as Elio exited the stall behind him instead of right in front. Alboreto could do little with this advantage though, the seconds it took him to rise to his feet on an injured knee were enough for the second attacker to wheel around and strike with a knife.

Elio counted himself lucky that these two were amateurs. Outnumbered, caught by surprise and injured he would have been in a dangerous spot if his attackers knew how to work together. Of course, he still had his firearm to fall back on, but Alboreto wanted to avoid loud gunfire if at all possible. He suspected his assailants were similarly armed but had not drawn for the same reason. It was in everyone's best interests to keep this affair private.

By now the man Elio had kicked was back on his feet and the odds were again two against one. In a blind rage, seeking to avenge his injured knee the first man shoved past his partner and attacked visciously with the club. It was to be his undoing. Elio was able to sidestep his charge and give him a shove, shifting the enraged man's weight onto his bad knee. He collapsed, and a kick to the face knocked him unconscious and knocked one of his eyes out of its socket.

That kick, delivered with his good leg, cost Elio though. He stumbled off balance on his injured knee but luck was on his side this time. The knife weilder hesitated when he saw the grizzly sight of his partner's eye dangling by its nerve cord. He took a step back and clearly considered running. That was what Alboreto needed; he yanked the Beretta from its hidden holster in the small of his back and jammed it into the man's gut. There was no hesitation...Elio pulled the trigger, using his opponent's own belly as his silencer. It was not enough to kill him but the man fell, writhing and screaming in agony. Alboreto ended his torment with a stomp on his neck...a courtesy he also granted to the unconscious man with the dangling eyeball.

Two dead bodies and a floor awash in blood. This was going to be hard to cover up. Elio needed a cleaner crew but the nearest one was hours away. He used the club to bash a cheap padlock off the supply closet and there he found a _bagno chiuso _sign. That would be the best he could do to keep people out until he came back with help.

Setting the sign at the door Elio slipped out. Again, luck was on his side, the _panetteria_ was empty save for the one female clerk. She was busy wiping down her front counter and did not see Alboreto sneak up behind her. It was a dirty move but a neccessary one, determined the Section Two agent right before he hit her in the jaw with an underhand strike. She was instantly unconscious...Elio managed to catch her before she hit the floor. He felt her jawbone and determined it was not broken, but she would have one hell of a headache when she woke up. Rifling her pockets did not provide him with the keys and he did not have time to search the whole shop.

Elio flipped the door sigh around from _aprire_ to _chiuso_ and hoped that would keep customers out for the few minutes he needed. As he walked down the cobblestones streets he silently cursed himself. _I just finished chewing out the two most incompetent desk agents Section One could make the mistake of sending into the field...telling them how obvious and blantant their actions were and that every Padan operative in the city had their number...and I expected that I could walk away without picking up a tail? _This was a mistake he'd never have tolerated from a subordinate agent, or his cyborg trainee but yet _he'd _made it.

_Don't make it worse by losing focus, _Alboreto reminded himself, _beating yourself up is just as bad as self-pity. _Without being obvious about the hurry he was in Elio hurried down to the docks, limping on his injured knee. Those two Section One agents may have been fools but they were manpower and that was what he needed at this moment. Marisa would have been far better at this sort of work but she was blocks away at the hotel and Elio did not know how long it would be before the two bodies were found. It was barely eight-thirty in the morning. _This is going to be one hell of a day_ grumbled Elio.

"Oi! You there!" called out Alboreto, upon arriving at the ferry dock. He was embarrassed to realize that he hadn't even asked the two Section One agents their names at their first meeting. In retrospect, they were probably _glad_ he had not asked.

"Me?" asked the thinner, slightly balding agent. He wasn't sure what to make of Alboreto's return. _Am I being tested?_

"We've got a situation up the street a bit" Elio explained, "I'll need both of you."

"Is it the Padania?" asked the Section One man, nervously feeling for his pistol.

Elio nodded. "Aye, two of them, but they're no threat anymore. Get your partner and meet me over by that _panetteria _up the street...see the one I'm talking about?"

"Yes, the one with the blue sign" answered the man before hurrying off to collect his partner.

Elio hurried back up the hill and breathed a sigh of relief; no one was waiting outside the bakery door. He gave his wristwatch a glance..._are those two Sec One fools taking too long or am I just being impatient?_ He did not have to wait much longer, his backup arrived and to their credit they were taking his earlier instructions to heart. They walked on opposite sides of the street and only made occasional eye contact. It was a little late for all that but at least the pair was beginning to form good habits.

"We came as fast as we could" panted the second man, a heavier fellow with thick black hair and a moustache.

"Alright, just act casually" Alboreto instructed.

"This shop is closed," observed the thin man.

"It's not locked." Elio opened the _panetteria _and ushered his two helpers in quickly. "Alright, you get into that supply closet over there...find me some heavy plastic trash bags and cleaning supplies...paper towels & bleach are best. You; come with me."

"_Porca puttana_ there's a dead girl over here!"

"She's not dead, now get those trash bags." Elio tried to keep his voice calm & level. The last thing he needed was one or both of these desk agents losing it when they saw the real dead bodies. He stopped just before entering the men's room and informed his helper "That lass behind the counter may not be dead, but the two Padans in here are. Keep your cool, alright?"

"D-dead Padanians?" stammered the man, "Are you sure they're dead?"

Elio shrugged his shoulders. "Reasonably sure...but keep your guard up just the same." His helper drew a SIG from its under-arm holster and reached up to chamber a round, but the older agent stopped him by growling "We're here to clean up, not make a bigger mess."

Alboreto went through the door first and found the two bodies right where he'd left them, although a bit more contorted from rigor mortis. They were also becoming a bit _pungent_. When the Section One man got his first look at the bodies his skin turned ashen gray. To his credit he fought to hold it together, taking a deep breath into his lungs in the hopes that it would settle his stomach. The effect was not as he desired. Once the smell of blood, emptied bowels and ripening bodies passed his nostrils all semblence of composure was lost. He doubled over and vomited...directly upon the Padanian Elio had shot in the gut. "Oh bloody hell," muttered the old spy. "Take a drink of water and throw up again in the sink. Might as well get it all out."

"I'm...I'm sorry. It's just that..."

"No worries lad," Elio reassured him, "I'm sure I was just as sick when I saw my first corpse." That was a white lie...Elio knew exactly where and when he'd seen his first corpse, in fact he'd been responsible for producing it...and he had not thrown up.

Just as the first Section One agent was re-gaining his composure the second arrived...wholly unprepared for what he was about to see. "I've got the bags, bleach and...oh _Madre di Dio_!" He immediately turned that ashen gray color his partner already wore and looked close to passing out. The first Section One man showed excellent presence of mind and grabbed him before anything bad could happen, thrusting him toward the sink where he evacuated the contents of his stomach.

Alboreto nodded. "Well done. You learn fast."

* * *

It took only thirty minutes to stuff the dead Padania pair into two garbage bags; a feat Elio accomplished by breaking their legs with a fire extinguisher. As his two helpers dragged them out the back door and hid them under a rubbish pile (Public Safety promised a cleaner team to pick them up later that day) Alboreto checked on the still unconscious clerk. She was breathing normally and would probably suffer no worse than a splitting headache when she woke up. Head injuries were no small matter but this girl was young...she would survive. Using more force than he needed to Elio broke open the cash register and cleaned out the large bills (there were not many this early in the morning), completing the illusion that this had been a robbery.

"Sir, we've hidden the bodies and mopped up with bleach" reported the slimmer, balding man, "it looks clean in there. Is there anything else?"

"Yes, stop calling me _sir_, you're an Agent same as me...not a cyborg or a trainee." Alboreto had a quick look over their work. If anything it was _too_ good, but with an apparent robbery having been commited he did not think anyone would notice the men's room in better condition than it had been left in. "Good work, both of you. You've gotten the Agency out of a real jam...I'll make sure Draghi knows how helpful you've been."

"_Grazie mille_," replied the heavier man with the moustache. He stripped off a yellow cleaning glove and extended his hand. "May I say what an honour it's been to work alongside a true professional." His partner peeled off his own gloves and followed suit.

Elio felt like rolling his eyes. _A true professional? I allowed myself to be tailed...got cornered & outnumbered in a public mens' room...injured my knee...knocked a civilian unconscious and left two dead bodies unattended. This is what you call a proper fuck up._ He held his tongue & did not voice those concerns out loud though, not wishing to sour the two desk agents' first taste of field work. With a sincerely grateful nod Alboreto shook the hands of his helpers and congratulated them again on their fine work.

As he walked back to the hotel Alboreto called Jean to apprise him of the situation. The Field Commander seemed surprisingly unconcered about the ridiculous situation Elio had gotten himself into; a sure sign that there was greater drama afoot at headquarters. When Alboreto asked about that Jean just answered "I'll tell you when you get here. Pagani will swing through to pick you & Marisa up as soon as I can spare him."

When Jean assured him that it would be at least noon before he could send Michele, Elio breathed an inner sigh of relief. Now that the adrenaline had worn off his injured knee was really bothering him, and two hours rest with an ice pack would be a welcome respite. Upon arriving at the hotel Elio found his cyborg just getting out of the shower, amusing herself with one of the hotel's complimentary robes. "You're limping, are you okay?"

"Ran into a little trouble when I stopped for coffee" he played down the incident, "I'll explain later. Would you please fetch me a pail of ice?"

"Yes sir!" chirped Marisa, grabbing the ice bucket, but her Master stopped her.

"Put some proper clothes on first" he ordered, motioning toward the battered Ducati saddlebag that held her wardrobe, "can't go traipsing around the hotel in nothing but your robe."

"But the ice machine is right down the hall..." argued Mari, "...it's only like, 10 meters away."

"Alright, I don't feel like arguing" Elio conceded, carefully lowering himself down on the bed with a groan. "When you get back we can order some breakfast from room service."

"Really?" beamed Marisa excitedly. To her, room service was an exotic and seldom experienced novelty. "But don't you always say room service is a huge rip-off?"

"I'll make an exception this time" he muttered, pulling a cool bed-sheet over his face. That was the signal to Marisa that her handler was tired and wished for a few minutes of peace & quiet, so she hurried off to fetch his ice. When she returned he was already asleep, so she packed his injured knee with the contents of her bucket and quietly dialed room service. She knew what Elio would want for breakfast...she was his devoted cyborg after all.

* * *

**By Kiskaloo**

**FIELD HEADQUARTERS - SPECIAL OPERATIONS, SECTION 2**

**NEAR MERANO, SOUTH TYROL, ITALY**

"I can shatter his ulna," Kara offered from the couch, raising her right boot. Grimacing, Michele put his hand on her foot and pushed it down.

"I was just offering to spare Signore Croce's knuckles. And you have to admit it worked well with Barese," Kara said, referring to a _cammorista_ she'd once interrogated before killing. She leaned against Michele, mimicking Rico, who slept with a contended smile against his other side.

The Pagani _fratello_ and their catch had been picked-up by a State Forestry Corps Agusta-Bell 412 helicopter, which flew them back to the airport in Bolzano. Kara found the 412 to be only slightly more bearable than the CH-47 and her mood remained foul.

"I think Mr. Jean enjoys rubbing his knuckles raw beating a suspect," Marisa stated. She and Elio had hitched a ride with the Pagani's back to the field headquarters.

"I believe the Montagne's are handling this one," Michele noted.

Piero Bandini and Dino Zenegna had both been subjected to continuous and enhanced interrogation since the Pagani and Blacker _fratelli_ had, respectively, dropped them off. While neither man could be considered to be a "high value" operative, they had information to give and Jean Croce was determined to obtain it.

The sharp sound of stiletto heels on wood announced the arrival of Ferro from the adjoining room.

"Sorry to interrupt your naps, ladies, but I need Michele."

"Duty calls," Michele said. Kara pulled away and Michele carefully moved Rico so she was leaning back against a pillow. Rising off the couch, he followed Ferro upstairs into the media room, which had been turned into the communications and briefing center. Jean Croce looked as if the previous 24 hours had never happened, his suit wrinkle-free and no hair out of place. Michele nodded to those handlers and staff not currently in the field, accepted a cup of espresso from Priscilla, and found a chair as Jean began the briefing.

"Based on our interrogations, we have determined that Padania was planning a series of bombings in Turin, Milan, Brescia, Verona and Venice on April 25th – Liberation Day. Perversely, they chose this date to declare the 'liberation' of the Northern provinces from the rest of the Republic. Explosive devices were to be delivered to the safe house and then the five teams would proceed to their target cities and place the devices in public places."

Because they were excused from school that day, every Italian knew since childhood that Liberation Day celebrated the fall of the Fascist government to the Allies. While not a major public holiday, it still meant a day off for much of the population, who would then congregate socially.

"Fortunately, these devices were designed to cause chaos, not casualties. Nevertheless, our disrupting these plans is certainly serendipitous. With the latest additions by the Pagani _fratello_, we have captured or eliminated 22 of the believed 43 escapees. Of those that remain, we believe our successes in the local _comunes_ and _frazione_ have flushed the rest into either heading for the Austrian border or trying to escape to the east or south to link up with other cells.

"I have received word from the Director that Defense Minister Petris will be laying a wreath at the Monumental Cemetery in Milan at the memorial to the Milanese who died in Nazi camps. We may need to detail a _fratello_ to augment the protection detail, but for now we are to continue prosecuting the remaining Padania. I suggest you all get some lunch while we generate new deployment orders."

During the initial rush, meals had consisted of pizzas picked up in Merano. As more resources from Rome arrived, more options became available and as the gourmands of the group, meals prepared by Michele and Kara were always well received. That being said, both Claes and Triela were becoming accomplished cooks themselves thanks to spending time in the kitchen with the Paganis.

As Michele stepped into the kitchen, he was greeted with a pleasant surprise.

"Ciao, Michele," Elenora Gabrielli stated. "I've missed your Risotto alla Chioggiotta so I stopped and picked up the ingredients," she added, holding up two large paper bags of groceries.

"Michele smiled and stuck his head back into the living room.

"Kara, I need your help in the kitchen, please."

"Yes, sir!" his cyborg replied.


	16. Chapter 16

**By MP5**

It had taken about an hour and a half to return to the field headquarters from her mission with Brian, but Allison was in quite a good mood. As she pulled into the chalet with Brian on his Yamaha in tow, Booker T. and the M.G.'s "Green Onions" wafted from her stereo system as a duffel bag filled with 50,000 Euros sat in the backseat. The original figure was more around 55,000 total, but Allison didn't think she needed to let Brian know that she'd skimmed a little something for herself when she showed him the contents at their post-action rendezvous. A wrapped stack of bills were currently nestled inside her jacket pocket as she found a spot to park before placing the Delta into neutral, applying the handbrake, and shutting off the engine as Brian parked up next to her. Once Allison pulled the prize from the back of her car, the two proceeded inside the chalet, Allison surreptitiously walking with the money-filled luggage.

"I think Jean's going to be pleased when he sees what we've brought back for him," said Allison. "These driver's licenses and money should help improve his mood a bit."

"While I'm not normally inclined to agree with you on the subject… I agree." Brian replied.

When they entered the chalet, however, there was a lot more activity going on than expected. Notably, off to one side, a number of handlers and cyborgs were gearing up with weapons and equipment. Magazines were being loaded and stuffed into pouches, slides and actions being opened and closed, zippers and Velcro unzipping, zipping, and being torn open then silently flipped shut.

A brown-haired young man accidentally bumped Allison as he made his way past her, spinning himself around in the process.

"Oof, sorry—Allison, you're back! Uh—I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bump into you!"

"No harm done, Jay." Allison replied with a smile and a kiss on her boyfriend's cheek. "Seriously, though, what's all the rushing about for?"

"Ryo's been shot down."

Allison dropped the bag of money on the floor and latched her hands onto Jay's shoulders.

"How long ago? Where? What's her condition?"

"Sis tells me she crashed at least about an hour ago but didn't come to until maybe 15 minutes ago. When she was going down, she radioed grid coordinates B-16, placing her somewhere in the mountains of Texelgruppe Nature Park. She also said both her legs aren't working and that she's bleeding."

"Christ. Does she have a weapon?"

"That's all I know."

Allison hung her head momentarily before looking up at Jay again.

"I guess you're getting ready?" she asked, gesturing to the Beretta 93R tucked into a special shoulder rig. Notably, his usual machine pistol had been given the addition of a suppressor and threaded barrel—most likely custom work done by Saladin.

"Well, I was available and it's not like Sis needs me while she does her intel stuff. Look, I gotta get the rest of my gear ready, they need me to take point and do any tracking stuff if the need arises."

"You do that."

Allison watched her boyfriend go, and observed others nearby gearing up. Annette and her handler Sarah were checking and re-checking their medical kits and folding up a stretcher, obviously needed for the task at hand. Jay was placing arrows in a quiver that would be slung over his back and his hunting bow lay on a table nearby; he was likely going to be scouting ahead, making the ability to deliver death silently necessary, and his weapons were perfect for that. Next to Jay, Marcus and Johanneke were gearing up, the latter visibly confused when Marcus told her to leave behind her throwing knives and primary weapon, leaving her with her Springfield Armory Operator, four shuriken, and her fighting knife. Johanneke's confusion was quickly erased, however, when her handler passed a Vektor SS-77 light machine gun to her in addition to a Milkor MGL 40mm six-shot grenade launcher; they were the heavy firepower in this group. Johanneke then turned to a solemn Kyo, who was attaching a suppressor to the muzzle of his Accuracy International AX 338 sniper rifle. Worry was evident on his face—justified, as it was his sister in the greatest of danger at the moment. Allison watched as the Afrikaner girl strode over to the Japanese boy (who secretly had a crush on the former) and began speaking to him animatedly, getting him to put down his rifle as she held his hands reassuringly. She had likely said something motivational to him, as the moment she let go, Kyo seemed a bit surer of himself and had a hopeful smile on his face.

At that point, Allison felt Brian's hand on her shoulder.

"I'll go report in to Jean," said the Ulsterman, grasping the duffel bag of cash. "You go get ready and fire up the Delta. Load up on mags and be prepared for a fight."

The two parted ways and Allison began readying her weapons and equipment. Everyone had resorted to warmer clothing for the rescue, since available sunlight was decreasing by the minute, and with nightfall came a considerable drop in outside temperature, further complicating the fact that they would already be searching for her in the snow-capped peaks of the Dolomites.

A few minutes later, Allison had everything ready. Her usual Tavor CTAR-21, equipped with a suppressor, now hung from a three-point sling draped across her body, with access to spare ammunition from an Eagle Industries Rhodesian Recon Vest that held a single ceramic ballistic plate in front of her abdomen behind all the magazine pouches. Her Kimber, still equipped with the suppressor from earlier in the day, now sat securely in a tactical thigh holster strapped to her leg and partially suspended by a duty belt.

Her gear now ready, Allison quickly went outside and started up her Lancia before retreating back inside, where everyone else was gathered. Erina and Nathan, on-site to assist Priscilla and Olga using assets available to the CIA fratello, had pulled up a map of the AO and focused on the area where Ryo had been shot down, and Erina was working on getting aerial or satellite assets into position to help with the rescue effort.

"Here's the situation so far, boys and girls." Nathan began, pointing to the satellite picture taken from a recent flyover. "Ever since Ryo got her wings rather rudely clipped by a lucky Padanian with an RPG, she's been hunkering down near the wreckage of her plane and staying put like a good girl should, especially if she can't move very far on her own. Unfortunately, this is also what has happened since…"

Nathan pressed a button on a remote and the image they were looking at zoomed out and changed, showing some marked positions superimposed on the satellite image.

"These dots and lines that you see indicate a time lapse over the past hour, indicating that some of the guys who shot her down are headed her way, assuming that she's Aeronautica Militaire or something and they have to go make sure she's dead. How long she'll be able to put up a fight, if at all, is something we do not know, but if she gets dragged off by them, it's obviously game over for us."

Jean then interrupted the small briefing. "However coincidental, Ryo's crash has also presented us with an opportunity, since any Padania in the area are all going after her and drawing them out of hiding in the process. Make eliminating them with extreme prejudice the priority before rescuing her."

The handlers and cyborgs nodded, though many were privately irked at Jean's priorities. However, Nathan picked up where he had left off, gesturing over to some equipment.

"I managed to procure some kit from the _Polizia Di Stato_. Just slap these lights and sirens onto your roofs and these license plates over your current tags so that you guys are seen as just unmarked units. These should help clear the way for you when you're going hell-for-leather up the SS44."

"We're also sending this with you guys." Erina added, handing over a ruggedized iPad. "You won't find _Angry Birds_ on there, but you **will** be able to see what we're seeing once we've established an uplink with a surveillance satellite and/or a Predator UAV with some Hellfires. It'll take some time to establish a linkup, though, so if you guys arrive before we can fully beam down whatever we've found, it'll be up to Jay to track down Ryo and the bad guys going after her if she's not at the GPS coordinates we gave you."

"That's basically it." Nathan said. "We won't keep you guys any longer, but do stay in touch with us."

"Will do." Brian replied. "All right, guys, let's get moving."

"Cyborgs, follow me! We've got no time to lose! Ryo's somewhere out there and she needs our help!" Allison bellowed. At this, her 'brothers and sisters' hustled out to her Delta, Johanneke and Jay helping her install the police equipment while the others piled their long guns into the rear hatch of the car so as not to obstruct their movement within the vehicle. Similarly, Brian led the handlers to a Dark Green 1997 Nissan Patrol and applied the police accoutrements that Nathan had supplied them with. Once the preparations were complete, each group piled into their respective vehicles and began exiting the Chalet.

"Hey, guys?" said Allison to her friends. "Make sure you're buckled up. Once we're on the highway, I don't plan on wasting time."

Without saying a word, the other cyborgs quickly checked their seatbelts and seatbelt buckles, knowing Allison was essentially warning them that she would be flooring it at first chance.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Allison saw Kyo's faraway expression as he watched the scenery go by.

"Don't worry, Kyo. We're getting your sister back no matter what."

Kyo lifted his head and looked towards Allison to reply. "I was willing to do this on my own; it means a lot that you guys are helping me. Thanks, Allison. I owe you."

"You don't owe me anything. This is just the right thing to do when one of us is in serious danger. We do this because if it was us out there, we'd want someone to be coming to our rescue too, right guys?"

Johanneke, Jay, and Annette all agreed with Allison, and the petrolhead turned her attention back to the male half of the Fitzgibbons twins.

"See, Kyo, no need to owe us anything. We look out for each other in times like these."

Allison made the turn going onto the SS44 and nodded to Jay, who flicked on the sirens and 'gumball lights' on the roof.

"Hold on to your butts, everyone." Allison said as she shifted up and mashed the throttle pedal to the floor.

-

Behind the wheel of the Nissan Patrol, Brian sighed as he watched Allison's car hunker down and shoot forward and away, the _whoosh_ of the turbocharger's blow-off valve highly audible even at a distance as Allison shifted into another gear, and the elder McDonnell throttled up and gave chase, lighting up his own sirens and lights.

"She sure loves putting her foot down." Marcus noted from the front passenger's seat.

"Wanna trade?" Brian offered jokingly.

"I dunno, mate; Johanneke might be too much of a handful for you." Marcus retorted with a chuckle.

"Well I certainly hope Allison has the sense to slow down when needed, I don't want Annette getting hurt in a crash." Sarah opined worriedly.

"Relax, Sarah." Marcus assured. "If Brian here can survive every time he's in a car with Allison, Annette will be just fine. That girl's not as reckless as you might think."

"Speaking of reckless," said Brian as he overtook a stopped vehicle that Allison had gone past, "How come we don't already have a UAV on site? I thought we requisitioned a Hermes to locate targets."

"Jean obviously realized that whoever shot down Ryo will naturally be drawn to the crash site along with their closest friends." Marcus explained. "Since it's easier to have them drawn to one place, he figured that the UAV could be used elsewhere anyway while we mop up the Padanians we find at the crash site."

"He's letting that poor girl be used as bait?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"I know, right? What a selfish bastard."

"He's definitely not the same Jean Croce I knew back in Bosnia." Brian said aloud.

"Good thing Nathan and Erina decided to pitch in." Marcus noted. "For a bunch of CIA spooks, they sure are generous. Erina's trying to get a Predator in the air and/or have a surveillance satellite moved into position."

"Can she get both?" Sarah asked.

"She said she was trying to establish an uplink to both the satellite and a Predator drone. Let me check in on their status." Marcus replied before getting on the frequency to the field HQ.

"HQ, this is the SAR team. How's the uplink coming along, over?"

A moment later, Erina's voice responded over the radio net. _"Still working on it, the data link is currently only at thirty percent. Once it's completely linked up, I'll send UAV control and the sat feed over to your iPad. Your call sign is also being changed; you guys are now call sign 'Deliverance', how copy, over?"_

"Solid copy, HQ. Keep us posted. Deliverance out."

"Deliverance, huh." Brian said. "A bit flowery for a call sign."

"Yet appropriate." Sarah said.

Sirens still blaring, the two vehicles continued to tear up SS44 towards Ryo.

-

Back at the safehouse, the Montagne Fratello had arrived from the day's dirty work, turning in Nicomedo Sebastino's Beretta and driver's license. However, as Jethro and Monty had brought one of their targets in alive for interrogation, Charlie, Andy, and Nicolette were not sent back out immediately, allowing Charlie to go find the drinks cabinet he vaguely recalled. Now, he was walking up to Erina with two rocks glasses of Johnnie Walker Black Label Scotch in hand, sourced from an out-of-the-way liquor cabinet in the kitchen. The young Casanova placed one of the short glasses next to Erina as she watched the progress bar of the uplink increase, sometimes in spurts, but mostly in small increments.

"Hello, Charlie." Erina greeted, turning away from the screen to see the glass of scotch. "What's this for?"

"I was wondering if you cared to join me for a drink, luv." Charlie replied. The two non-Italians spoke English with each other, not really interested in letting their conversation move beyond themselves even though the people around them could speak English rather fluently.

"I appreciate the gesture, Charles, but as you can see, I have work to do." Erina replied with a small smile, tilting her head towards the laptop in front of her.

"Ooh, so professional and formal!" exclaimed Charlie, putting on an impressed tone and grinning. "In all seriousness though, Erina, it seems to me like you are in desperate need of distraction lest the graphic on your computer screen torture you with its recalcitrant immobility."

"Well, I kind of have to watch this thing, Charlie. Once this uplink is established, I have to bounce it to the team out in the field so that they can make use of it. Unfortunately, it's really slow."

"It won't go any faster if you just sit there and stare at it, luv. Give it some time, maybe step away for a bit, yeah? Who knows, maybe working buzzed will be a little more entertaining for you."

"Charlie, if I drink, will you stop badgering me?" Erina proposed. "As much as I enjoy your company, I have some work to be doing here."

"I'm just helping you pass the time, Erina." Charlie replied with an innocent expression on his face.

"All right. Here."

Erina took her rocks glass of Johnnie Walker, already beginning to condense, and held it in the air for a toast. "Cheers," they chorused, before taking pulls from their glasses. Erina, however, coughed and sputtered a little as she put down her share of the top-shelf scotch.

"Went down the wrong pipe?" Charlie suggested.

"No, I'm just not used to drinking alcohol." Erina replied, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "That was pretty good, though, but I guess it's an acquired taste."

"Would you like some more?"

"No thanks, I think one glass is plenty," she replied, turning back to the screen. "Really?" she exclaimed, looking at the progress bar. "It only went up five percent in the past 15 minutes? I hate waiting!"

"I have other ways to pass the time, you know." Charlie offered.

"Like what?"

"Well, you and I could go lock ourselves in a room for a little while and get to know each other a little better…" suggested the suave playboy, wrapping his arms around Erina's shoulders.

"Very funny, Charlie. Go bother your brother instead." Erina chuckled, pushing Charlie away.

"No thanks. I'd rather not interrupt him while he's working some poor sod over."

Elsewhere deep in the chalet, Piero Bandini sat bound to a chair by a mixture of rope and duct tape while Andy brought what looked like a Mylar clothes dryer vent hose into the spartan room lit by a single incandescent bulb. As Andy adjusted the hose, bringing it into the room, Bandini continued making threats against the boy's life.

"You _pezzo di merda_! Do you know who you're dealing with?"

Andy said nothing as he set the hose down and started a new roll of duct tape, attaching a smaller hose to the larger dryer vent hose.

"Hey! I'm talking to you, government bastard! Answer me!"

Andy finished his adjustments and crouched in front of Bandini. "Look mate, I'll be honest with you, I have better things to do with my time than work you over to force some answer out of you that my boss wants. So why not save yourself the trouble and tell me something that perhaps we would like to know?"

"Go to hell!" Bandini shouted before spitting on Andy's blazer.

Without warning, Andy punched Bandini in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of the mafiosi, who doubled over, trying to recover his breath. However, Andy had picked up the end of the apparatus he had been constructing, pressed it over Piero's nose and mouth and fastened it to the man's head and face with more duct tape. As soon as it was secure, Andy spoke into a radio handset.

"Start it up, Nicolette."

Piero was still trying to catch his breath when he heard the noise of a car engine starting, and quickly realizing what was going on, he held what breath he had as he felt the warmth of a car's exhaust gases brush against his lips while Andy stepped up to him.

"You might be surprised to learn, Piero, that this is actually the most effort I've gone to in order to interrogate someone." Andy explained. "Most of the time, I threaten a person with physical violence and actually act on my threats. However, since you were expected to be rather stubborn, my bosses had me rig up this special torture just for you. As you can likely tell, that's exhaust gas I'm trying to force you to inhale, and frankly, it's only a matter of time until it does fill your lungs and you start feeling the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning. It's a rather undignified way to leave this world, and you can prevent that if you just politely answer my questions. You can take your time in deciding if you want to comply, but I certainly wouldn't take too long."

Bandini glared at Andy defiantly, unable to growl, as he would waste precious oxygen. Andy, on the other hand, simply looked at his Rolex, watching the time tick by.

"Just nod if you're ready to talk." Andy said nonchalantly.

Bandini's willpower was beginning to fade as the exhaust gases grew slightly warmer against his face, and his lungs were beginning to ache. He was beginning to get lightheaded, his body telling him he needed to breathe, but if he did, he would be killing himself slowly.

A minute passed. Everything was going all swimmy for Piero Bandini as carbon monoxide took its toll on him, concentrated as it was within the dryer vent. As he began to slump over, Andy ripped the duct tape from Bandini's face, clicked the talk button on his radio handset twice, and clasped a breathing mask connected to an oxygen bottle over the mafiosi's nose and mouth.

"Breathe. Breathe. Take it all in, no rush."

Bandini breathed deeply, glad to be sucking down the oxygen he so desperately needed. After 30 seconds of deep breathing with the mask, Andy took it away from the detainee and then gripped the man's throat, just firmly enough so that Piero Bandini would be aware that Andy had direct control over whether he lived or died in the next few seconds.

"Now then, are you going to talk, or would you like to knock on death's door a second time?"

Piero managed to nod his assent, and Andy released him, leaving Bandini a few seconds to catch his breath.

"What…what do you wish…to know?" Piero huffed, haggard face looking up at his captor.

"I'd like to find out what a 'Ndrangheta heavy like you is doing so far away from his usual stomping grounds in Milan." Andy said.

"I was on vacation," answered Piero, voice dripping with sarcasm.

"I don't believe you, and there's a penalty for that," announced Andy, drawing one of his Berettas from his shoulder rig. He placed the muzzle to Bandini's right kneecap, flicked the safety off, and fired. Bandini howled in pain as the aloof Montagne twin placed the still-warm muzzle of the Beretta to the mafiosi's other knee.

"Would you like to answer that question again?"

"Okay, okay! I was the money man for an upcoming Padania operation!"

"What operation?"

"I can't tell you!"

Andy ground the muzzle of his Beretta into Bandini's remaining good knee to remind him of his position.

"What operation?"

"They're calling it 'Liberation Day' or something! They needed money to buy the explosives and weapons they were going to use for the operation!" Bandini whimpered.

"Who is the operation being launched against?" Andy continued.

"I don't know; I'm just the money man!"

"You're lying." Andy fired again, obliterating Bandini's other kneecap, eliciting another shriek of pain and suffering.

"I SWEAR! I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ELSE!" Piero finally managed to yell through tears and pain.

"I doubt that a man with so many contacts on his mobile phone would be that unapprised of what's going on. Don't hold out on me, Piero. Who's it being planned against?"

"I don't know, some government target, I imagine! Oh, you son of a bitch, you took out both my knees!"

"I can do much worse." Andy threatened. "Another question, how is your lot going to benefit from the operation?"

"Kiss my fucking ass!"

For this, Piero Bandini was pistol-whipped across his face.

"You're really trying my patience here, Piero." Andy said, gripping the bloodied man by his throat again and beginning to squeeze slowly. "I'm going to ask you again; how will the 'Ndrangheta benefit from sugar daddying the Five Republics Faction for guns and plastic explosive?"

"I don't…know…" croaked Bandini. "Ask…Salvatore Moreno…assuming…you can find him…in Italy…anymore…"

The name struck a chord with Andy, who released Bandini before turning around for a second as anger began to build within him.

"Hey…"

Andy whirled to see Bandini scrutinizing him as the Mafiosi caught his breath.

"I know you… You're the brother of that little thief who fucked the boss' daughter and stole her Ferrari! So you survived, eh? HA! HA HA HA HAH! You and your brother are tougher than I thought… Next time, we'll be sure to shoot you both in the head, and take turns with that hot little bitch in that picture I saw in your apartment—"

Bandini never got to say anything else, as Andy drew both his Berettas and emptied them into him with trigger pull after trigger pull. The slides locked open when the weapons were emptied, and Andy strode over to the corpse of the bullet-riddled detainee and swiftly delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of Piero's head, breaking his neck with the force of the kick for good measure as the chair toppled to the floor with the 'Ndrangheta man still bound to it.

Andy leaned against the wall, panting with adrenalin and rage coursing in his veins.

_Moreno…_

-

The last rays of the sun were peeking over the horizon when the Section 2 SAR team arrived at Texelgruppe Nature Park, and there was still roughly four kilometers to travel on foot until they reached the approximate GPS coordinates of Ryo's crash site, and those four kilometers would challenge their ability to traverse snow of varying depth in areas that were relatively exposed. At this time of day, however, no civilian in their right mind would be wandering around the park with the sunlight all but faded. The two vehicles disguised as unmarked police units pulled into a clearing devoid of any other cars and civilians, allowing the teenaged occupants of the Delta and the adults in the Patrol to retrieve their long guns without being disturbed. Once ready, the two groups locked their vehicles and plodded forth into the snow.

As they began making their way towards the crash site, Johanneke raised a very valid question.

"How come we didn't all pile into the Nissan Patrol? A 4x4 will get us to the crash site faster than just walking."

Before any of the adults could answer, Allison beat them to the punch. "We don't know how deep the snow here will be, and there aren't any trees around to attach a winch to if we get stuck, and as it is, with all the snow on the ground, us cyborgs would likely slip and fall if we were to be the anchoring point for the winch if we even had one. The Patrol might be a 4x4, but if we lose traction in it, we're sitting ducks in an unarmored metal box, and a group of people able to spread out and get prone if necessary will make less noise and have somewhat less of a presence than a noisy turbodiesel off-roader with lights on high beam setting to light the way."

Johanneke was satisfied with that answer. "That does make sense, I guess, and I suppose I don't mind walking."

They continued in silence, the cyborgs scanning for threats until two kilometers later, where Jay was on point, when he suddenly held his fist up the moment his sensitive hearing picked up distinct staccato popping noises in the distance. Everyone behind him had stopped and crouched to a knee.

"What is it, lad?" Brian asked from the back of the group.

"I think there might be a firefight at the crash site." Jay replied, listening out.

"I hear it too. Ryo might be in contact!" Allison exclaimed.

"Then we better double-time it. Let's go!" Brian ordered.

Abandoning any pretense of stealth, the group rushed through the snow as fast as possible, following in Jay's tracks as the boy's seemingly innate sense for the wilderness allowed him to find the fastest, most shallow path through the snow. His fellow cyborgs kept watch for any threats along the way, and at their pace, they quickly cleared the third kilometer. Halfway through the remaining kilometer, Jay heard the gunfire, which had grown louder as they neared the crash site, suddenly die off.

"Things just went silent." Jay announced.

"Good or bad?" Marcus asked.

"Won't know till we have eyes on." Jay replied, drawing an arrow from his quiver and nocking it in his hunting bow.

"Only a couple hundred meters to go. We should see the crash site from the top of this hill." Brian said, checking the GPS unit.

At this, Jay, Johanneke, and Kyo sprinted the last 400 meters to the crest of the hill they were approaching. Upon reaching it, Kyo and Johanneke instinctively dropped into prone position while Jay dropped to a knee and drew back his bow. However, a visual sweep of the area deemed their actions unnecessary.

"What do you see up there, Jay?" Brian asked as he and the remaining handlers and cyborgs crouched down a few meters below Jay and the others at the crest of the hill.

"I think you should come see this, sir." Jay replied as he eased tension off his bowstring while Johanneke and Kyo got to a knee with weapons at the low ready position, the latter's expression turning into one of confusion and worry with each passing moment. Brian proceeded to join Jay at the crest, and upon surveying the scene before him, immediately understood what Jay had meant. Around the crash site were eight bodies, all of them lying facedown, dead in the snow of the Dolomites. All of them had been armed with assault rifles typically used by the Five Republics Faction. Alarmingly, however, there was notably no sign of Ryo anywhere in the scene before them.

"We should take a closer look, see if there's any clues as to Ryo's whereabouts." Brian suggested. The team descended into the area of the crash site, Kyo trailing as he became consumed with worry for his dear sister's welfare.

As they spread out into the crash site, Brian looked over the scene.

"Looks like eight more to the tally," noted the Ulsterman before turning to Allison. "Go search them for ID so that we can confirm the kills and mark them for extraction."

"Think they'll need their money?" Allison asked with an innocent grin on her face, causing Brian to pinch his nosebridge.

"Be quick and subtle about it." Brian sighed in reply. Allison quickly went to work, searching the corpses for driver's license, photo ID, and the spoils of someone else's victory before dragging them together in one spot and marking them with an infrared beacon for the helicopters that would sortie in the evening to search for any bodies that Section 2 had made inside the nature park and extract them before the park opened to civilians in the morning.

Next to the remains of the plane, Kyo crouched over the spent casings and the empty rifle bag where his sister had sat while defending herself from the eight Padania that had come for her. Drops of blood also stained the snow a dark crimson, and Kyo worried more and more with every minute.

"Are we too late, _oneechan_?" Kyo whispered to himself. At that moment, Johanneke appeared beside him and crouched down to his level.

"You all right, Kyo?" the blonde asked, concern evident in her voice.

"I can't say I am," he replied. "My heart sank when I couldn't find my sister anywhere in this mess. What if the Padania took her somehow? I know she can fight, but she was a sitting duck in this place. What if they somehow overpowered her and dragged her off with them? What if she's dead and they took her body with them to dissect her or something?"

Kyo's worry had reduced the sniper to a highly emotional state, tears of fear beginning to flow from his eyes as sobs began to escape his throat. Suddenly, Kyo found himself being held in a tight embrace by the Afrikaner beside him.

"Hey! Calm down, Kyo." Johanneke ordered, still holding the boy. "You need to look at the bright side and never give up hope. I know how tough your sister is, and if she knew she was in a position where she was going to die, she'd have killed every Padania down to her dying breath, and we'd know it. Ryo is still somewhere out here; somehow, she got away from this place. All we need to do is find her and bring her home. We won't leave her out here on her own, Kyo. I certainly won't. Now be strong, be strong for your sister. Be strong for me, if you have to, okay?"

"O-okay." Kyo agreed, pulling back from the unexpected hug. Johanneke grinned at him, and Kyo could not help but be captivated by the positive energy that freely flowed from his crush.

"C'mon, Kyo. Smile for me, will ya?"

It took a few moments, but the Japanese cyborg managed a small smile that made Johanneke's own grin a little bigger.

"Attaboy. Stay positive, Kyo. This mission isn't over yet."

"Sorry to interrupt the moment, guys," Allison suddenly butted in, surprising Kyo, who was blushing a little. "But Jay seems to have found a clue as to where Ryo's gone off to, and how."

The three regrouped with Jay, Annette, and the handlers at a set of footprints with a few nearby drops of blood and some more spent casings, these ones belonging to a pistol of some sort.

"What do you make of this, Jay?" Marcus asked.

"This **has** to be how Ryo got out of here." Jay said, crouching down near the footprints. "These footprints indicate something especially heavy, or rather, someone carrying another person."

"So, Ryo was carried out, but by who?" Sarah asked next.

"Well, if you look at these casings near this set of footprints, it's pretty clear that whoever fired the rounds was covering a retreat. And upon closer inspection…"

Jay picked up one of the casings and inspected it closely before showing it off to the others.

"See that brass? Nine by eighteen millimeter Makarov ammo. Padania doesn't use Russian ammo outside of AK's. And the amount of casings nearby indicates a lot of rounds spent in just a few seconds, which indicates full-auto or burst capability. There's only one person who uses this ammo that I know of."

Allison understood her boyfriend's inference. "You mean-!"

"Yeah. Ryo's safer now. My sensei—Alpha to the rest of you—found her first. These casings are from his Stechkin machine pistol."

Kyo breathed a sigh of relief. Even though he only knew of Alpha primarily by reputation, Alpha had a good reputation, despised as he was by Jean and disliked by Ferro and Chief Lorenzo.

"So all we do now is follow his footprints?" Johanneke asked.

"Mostly, but I wouldn't count on them getting out of here unnoticed. Something tells me there's a few more Padania after Sensei and Ryo. What would really help is if we could get a look at the lay of the land going in the direction of Sensei's footprints." Jay replied.

"Let me check in with Erina." Marcus offered. "Let's see if we can get that UAV and Satellite support yet."

Marcus pressed the transmit button on his radio. "HQ, this is Deliverance. What's the status on that UAV and Satellite support, over?"

"_Standby, Deliverance."_ Erina answered. _"The uplink is complete. I'm handing over the feed to your iPad…now. Are you receiving, over?"_

Marcus extracted the ruggedized iPad from his pack and unlocked it, sliding the interface across the screen as the iPad automatically went to the application that showed the live feed from either the CIA satellite currently in place over the area or the view from a Predator drone that was deployed somewhere high above the Texelgruppe Nature Park, well above the range of surface-to-air missiles, let alone RPG rockets.

"We're receiving the feed five-by-five, over." Marcus replied.

"_Excellent. Now, that Predator you've got at your command will definitely help you see whatever's over the horizon. In case you have a jam, though, you can call down death from above with the Hellfire missiles it's got fixed to it. It only has two though, so if you gotta use 'em, make it count. The sat feed gives you real-time observation of the whole battlefield as well, but it'll only be around for maybe one more hour, and you can't shoot anything with it like you can with the Predator. Good hunting, Deliverance. HQ out._"

"All right, we can have the UAV scout ahead for us while we follow the tracks. That way, we'll know if there's trouble ahead and find a way to deal with it before we run into it." Brian announced. "Let's get to catching up with those two."

The group set off from the crash site, the satellite feed giving them a rough estimate of a three kilometer gap between them and Alpha and Ryo. Jay took point again, following the tracks that Alpha had made.

The rescue team had cleared two kilometers further when the iPad suddenly chirped and Marcus unlocked it, going straight to the remote feed from the Predator. A red box highlighted a heat signature on the camera feed and the software automatically zoomed in.

"Someone knows we're here." Marcus announced. "The UAV just picked up some possible hostiles half a klick away. Looks like an RPG team."

"I bet they're the same ones who shot my sister down." Kyo growled. "Permission to express my displeasure with some .338 Lapua, sir?"

"Negative on that, lad." Brian replied. "Now's not the time for personal vendettas."

"Besides, we'll flush 'em out by making noise." Marcus added, glancing to Johanneke. "Johanneke, you pin 'em down with the 40mm and then suppress with the Vektor. Jay!"

"Yes sir?"

"You improvise however you want, but find the RPG team and destroy them once we start causing a ruckus."

"Understood."

The team approached the expected ambush site, Marcus keeping watch on the RPG team via the Predator drone for any sign of movement indicating they were about to attack. Soon enough, they were about to enter the ambush site in question, and Johanneke made it known.

"The hostiles are in range." said the blonde, unslinging the six-shot grenade launcher from her back.

"All right. Jay?" Marcus said, giving the scout his cue. Without a word, he silently went to the right side of the pass to flank the RPG team whilst the others went to the left side to get a better angle on the enemy. Johanneke and Marcus proceeded a few paces down the center before the cyborg dropped to a knee and began lobbing 40mm HE rounds from the MGL into the RPG team's position, causing the area to shake with explosions meant to harass them. As soon as the MGL was exhausted, Johanneke picked up her SS-77 and began laying down fire just over where she gauged the heads of the enemy would be while the remainder of the team opened fire from behind her.

On the right side of the path, the two Padania and their RPG launcher were unable to respond as incoming fire pinned them down.

"Damn, those Agency bastards have us pinned!"

"C'mon, we'll flank them!"

As the two men began to move, a figure suddenly materialized out of the darkness, coming towards them. Jay charged in their direction, bow and arrows drawn back, using three fingers to hold two arrows on the bowstring simultaneously, like a superhero he had read about in a comic book. As the two Padanians raised their weapons, Jay ran up a small boulder and leapt into the air, loosing the arrows at the Padanians. The arrows caught the terrorists in the heart and head, and the one with the RPG pulled the trigger as he stumbled backwards in the throes of death, sending the RPG warhead into the sky, where it exploded some seconds later. The remainder of SAR team 'Deliverance' stopped firing when they saw the two Padania fall dead in front of them, already felled by Jay's arrows and further perforated by their concentrated fire. The team regrouped back on the path, Jay dragging the Padania bodies with him. Brian whistled when he saw the single arrows through the forehead and chest of each Padanian, a feat that Jay had accomplished while more or less running towards friendly fire then jumping in the air and releasing the arrows as he fell back to the ground.

"Bloody hell, lad! You're a surgeon with that bow of yours!"

"That's my very own Robin Hood!" Allison said in praise of her boyfriend, getting close and planting a big smooch on the boy's cheek, making him grin.

"Public nuzzling aside, we should probably mark these bodies and get their ID so that we can keep moving. Until Ryo's back, the mission's not over." Marcus announced.

With the Maori man's words taken into consideration, the bodies were quickly searched for ID before being arranged for easy pickup by the forthcoming recovery helicopters before the continued following the footprints Alpha left behind.


	17. Chapter 17

**By Officer Charon**

The following day turned up the rest of the team – including a somewhat wild-eyed Giorgio, who looked to be developing a nasty facial tic whenever he looked at the parked vehicles of the SWA's "motor pool." Shaking himself, the trooper turned to where the assembled SRT lounged about in various states of wakefulness.

"Wake up, you layabouts!" he barked. Most snapped their heads to face him – some, still bleary-eyed attempted to drag their heads up with varying degrees of success. "Okay, it's been a hell of a ride, but we're all here now. For some of you who'll remember it, this looks like it's going to mirror that hasty op down in Palermo, from last year. Similar situation, but this time we're hunting actual Padans, instead of some piddly little Mafiosi."

Amadeo nodded. "From what we've been able to gather, between us and the fratelli who were able to respond quickly enough, we've manage to scrounge up a good bit of intel regarding Padan operations in the area, to say nothing of the group who rabbitted from Leprotto and Duracell. It turns out that the network up here is considerably more extensive than we first thought."

"No shit," muttered Fausto, sotto voce, and the group chuckled. Amadeo rolled his eyes and continued. "Yes, well, the point of concern that the spooks are focusing on is why they were assembling so large a group here in the first place. Cells are never this big – too much of a risk of detection. The only reason they'd be getting together here would either be for some sort of training, or they were getting ready to hit something." The joking atmosphere dissipated as quickly as it came, as each member of the team quickly came to the same conclusion.

"Where, though?" asked John, rhetorically. Giorgio shook his head. "That's what we're still trying to figure out. In the meantime, however, we've got tasking. Some of you are going to be attached to other teams, working in tandem with the spooks, the ghouls, or troops in the area. For the most part, we're all going to be in plain clothes. If we get geared up, it means shit just got extra-real."

Nihad cleared his throat. "Listen up for your assignments."

"Belay those orders," interrupted a cool contralto. Looking up, John noted Ferro Milani entering into the loose semi-circle of troopers, her low heels clicking on the concrete of the parking lot. "I have new tasking for you. One of the assets recovered by Section 2 operatives has yielded a surprising amount of intelligence on the nature of Padania operations in the area."

She walked over to where a map of the Alto Adige region had been pinned to a pair of easels, upon which various pins, pen marks, and pictures had been laid, outlining intelligence and mission taskings. She grabbed a laser pointer from the pen tray at the base of the easel and indicated the E45/A22, where it passed through Bolzano, leading down toward Trento, and points beyond. "The basic plan was to dispatch numerous teams along the main route, dispersing to major metropolitan areas upon reaching Verona. Each team would have a large number of explosives." She lit up the bottom portion of the map, where the main road continued south, leaning slightly forward as she did so – several of the troopers took a moment to enjoy the callipygian spectacle as it presented itself. "Once at their target areas, the operatives would set the charges on rail and road bridges, as well as other route of passage for civilians travelling from the South to the North, and vice versa."

She stepped back from the map, turning around as she did so. The gawkers snapped their heads up. "Their stated goal was to symbolically – and literally, in some cases – cut off the North from the South, thus 'liberating' them from the 'Southern parasites.'" Somehow, her clinically professional voice managed to carry an edge of scorn, and John felt his lip curling in a sympathetic reaction.

"Of course," she continued, the corners of her mouth moving in a faint smile, "our presence here has somewhat changed things. We're still looking for the locations of the explosives – several of the bomb squad operatives will be working that angle. I'll be designating 4 of you to support their efforts, in two vehicles."  
"Eight more will be tasked with direct support of the fratelli in the area. Wherever Lt. Croce needs you, that's where you'll go. If you need more support, draw from the reserve squad." Amadeo and Giorgio, suddenly cognizant that they were needing to keep up with the deployments, pulled out pads of paper and scribbled notes. Ferro continued on with the deployment orders, leaving six of the troopers in a Quick Reaction Force, and parceling out the others on recon and intel-gathering missions. The two squad leaders looked at each other, grimacing – the way it was laid out, one of them was going to have to stay behind with the QRF, fully-geared up and generally being uncomfortable whilst waiting for Bad Stuff to happen.

After reviewing the deployments again, Ferro coolly surveyed the troopers, viewing them as one might view a particularly oily tool in one's tool box. "Very well then… you have your assignments."

As they began to stand, she gave a small vocalization, as though suddenly remembering something. "Oh yes, one more thing… Section One has openly stated that they are most upset with the way that Section Two botched the initial approach, and have stated that they will be the ones to 'clean up our mess.'" Her gaze hardened. "I trust that we shall be able to show them that their arrogance has no place on this operation?" A round of guttural chuckles met this pronouncement. Satisfied, Ferro walked away, hips swaying slightly.

"Okay gents," spoke up Giorgio, after allowing sufficient time to ogle Ferro's retreating figure again. "You know the drill. Watch your asses, watch your partners ass, and get everyone back in one piece. Steak dinner to whoever brings in the most HVTs, WITHOUT making a complete goat-rope of their mission. Anyone lets the team down, their ass is mine. È chiaro?"

"[Roger,]" growled John, and the rest of his teammates nodded. They all stood, dusted off their fundaments, and separated to their various assignments.

**By TheScarredMan**

Priscilla put her comb and scissors down on the bathroom sink. "That's about all I can do with it, short of cutting the rest to match. If I were you, I'd switch to a ponytail."

Triela frowned as she examined her reflection in the mirror. A stranger with haunted-looking eyes stared back at her. She was wearing only her slip; the robe she'd worn over it lay draped across the towel bar. Her tails streamed over the front of her shoulders, one on each, her regular working 'do. They were equal in length again, but quite a bit shorter than before, and one was decidedly thinner. She remembered having once offered to cut her hair for Hilshire, and how he'd seemed almost offended. What would he say when he saw? "Will it grow back?"

"I don't know. Not all you girls have hair that grows." Standing behind her, the grownup brushed her hands along Triela's scalp, almost petting her. In the mirror's reflection, Triela saw her smile. "Cheer up. So it's waist-length now instead of past your butt. There are girls who'd kill for hair like yours, just the way it is."

"Kill?"

"Figure of speech," the woman said quickly. "I mean that not everyone can grow hair this long."

"Why? Does it stop?"

Priscilla head-shrugged. "Yes and no." She removed the ties on Triela's tails, letting her hair fall free to cover her torso. "Hair grows at a rate of about twenty centimeters a year, no matter whose head it's on. After a time, the follicle lets go of the hair, and rests for about three weeks, and starts over. But follicles don't all grow a hair for the same period of time before they release it. Some let go after a couple of months, when it's still fairly short, but others hold on to the same hair for years. If you mostly have follicles like that, you'll seem to grow hair faster than other people, and it'll be longer before it maxes out."

Triela gathered her tresses up in her fingers and stared at them. She pulled her fingers through, feeling the cut ends among the longer strands. "It's always been the same length till now." _How can I know if it's real? How much of me was mine before I became a cyborg?_

"I know. But do you shed? Ever find hairs on your pillow, or in the shower?"

"Yeah. Claes presents me with them every time she finds one. She says sharing a room with me is like keeping an Afghan hound."

"Heh." Priscilla smiled, picked up a brush, and began carefully pulling it down though the wheat-colored mop. "That's good news. Artificial hair wouldn't fall out often. Yours must be growing, then. A year from now, you won't be able to tell it was ever cut." The brush hesitated a moment while the woman thought her last statement through.

_A year_, Triela thought. _As if it's nothing, not a third of a lifetime.__As if anyone can know whether I'll be alive and sane a year from now. _Right now, another year of sanity seemed very unlikely. What she'd experienced just a few hours ago certainly argued against it. It had all seemed so real, realer than life, filling her mind and senses and stealing her power to reason. Surely such a massive hallucination was a sign of imminent conditioning burnout. _If it happens, there's nothing I can do. Except, maybe, ask Hilshire to… _With an effort, she pushed down her fear and cleared her mind. "How did you learn so much about hair?"

"I worked part-time as a hairdresser when I went to university." Silla grinned into the mirror. "Not that I needed to know all about hair follicles to do trims and perms. Guess I had a bent for data collection even then."

Triela gave a little nod. She seldom envied grownups their extra years, seeing how much of that time was simply wasted, but sometimes one of them would casually reveal a treasure trove of knowledge and experience seemingly unrelated to their present lives, as if they'd once been someone entirely different. What must it be like, to reinvent yourself over and over? That was an experience she was curious about, but which was forever denied her. That, and growing up. She touched the back of Priscilla's hand. "Thank you for taking the time to help me. I know you're busy."

Silla had arrived with the mobile communications center, and was manning it until relieved by a proper tech crew in the next day or so, whereupon she was supposed to return to headquarters.

"When I'm busy, I'm very busy. But there are lulls." The woman's arms wound around Triela's shoulders. "Besides," she said into her ear, "this isn't more work. It's fun." She let go and resumed brushing. "I _will_have to go back to the trailer soon, though. The computers can sort through a lot of signal traffic, but not all. We need to know what these people were up to, and if there are any more."

"Can I help?" Triela's offer was only part motivated by gratitude. She desperately needed something to do.

Hilshire was closeted with Jean and several other handlers, trading action reports and trying to guess what the RF was up to. They hadn't had a chance to interrogate any prisoners yet; none of the engagements up till now had delivered a live Padan into the Agency's hands. That was bound to change soon – Jean wasn't out in the field alone, after all – but for now all they had to go on was signal intelligence and their own observations.

Her handler had ordered her to 'take it easy' until the doctors arrived; he'd hidden his concern, but she knew him too well to be fooled, and his worry had amplified her own. The enforced idleness and anxiety about what the doctors might find had her afraid to think lest her imagination spin out of control. Waiting for the doctors felt too much like waiting for the hangman. She needed something to take her mind off things. "I could keep you company, at least, if I wouldn't be in the way."

Priscilla set down the brush. "Oh, I'm sure we can find you something real to do. Take a nice hot shower, get dressed, and meet me at the comm shack."

Wanting to feel as normal and back-on-track as possible, Triela selected one of the uniform-like outfits Hilshire preferred: close-fitting trousers with a sweater vest over a white shirt. She didn't put on a tie or jacket, though, and left her collar open. After some time in front of the mirror in her room staring at her butchered tails, she gathered her hair up off her neck in a ponytail. A moment's examination of her reflection told her Silla was right. She sighed. _Guess I'll be wearing it like this for a while._She left her coat on the bed, despite the chill evening air; the walk outside would be very short.

The comm shack was a gray semi trailer parked in a clear area a stone's throw from the chateau's rear entrance. A row of dishes down its roof pointed in every direction, and a generator snored softly somewhere close by. A set of steps extended from a wide door in its side. Triela climbed the steps and knocked, then let herself in.

"Wow," she said softly, surveying the banks of electronic gear running the length of the trailer. Several flatscreen TVs were mounted on the walls; three of them were on and tuned to news stations. But only one of the half-dozen workstations was occupied.

Silla removed her headset and dropped it around her neck. "You look better. Did you eat?"

"No. Commissary's not up and running yet. Although I suppose I could find something. Are you hungry?"

"Not yet. Are you up for a little eavesdropping?" The woman offered her a headset from a nearby station. "I have orders from Jean to monitor all possible Padania communications in our theater of operations."

"That sounds like a tall order." Triela slipped the tiny earpieces on. Nothing was coming through yet.

"It's an impossible order. So first we do what we can to whittle it down to size. The military has cordoned off the area, and they've cut off all land line traffic in and out. Internet service is suspended as well - a virus attack is the official excuse. A command-and-control aircraft is orbiting the area, jamming the longer radio frequencies. That leaves shorter-wave communications like cell phones and walkie-talkies, which we need for our own communications." She smiled crookedly. "It also leaves land-line calls in-theater, messengers, homing pigeons, heliographs, smoke signals, and plenty of less likely possibilities. We can't intercept everything. But we can make communication difficult and risky. Walkie-talkies are short-range and line-of-sight and easy to intercept if we're in range, so they won't use them when we're around. They might get away with using cell phones if traffic volume is high and they're careful what they say, but if we identify a particular number as belonging to the enemy, it becomes a spy in their midst. We can listen through its microphone, even if it's shut off as long as it's got power, and use its GPS function to monitor and trace its location and movements realtime - even backtrack all the phone's previous movements and locations since first activation. Also, we can remotely access its entire usage history: directory of previous calls in and out, texts and voice messages – even deleted ones - and acquire _those _numbers' histories."

"Wow," Triela said again. "I guess cybernetics isn't the only tech Italy excels at."

Priscilla's fingers fluttered over the keyboard at Triela's station, and a screen lit up to display a long list of phone numbers. "It's American, actually. An exchange of favors with the DEA – brokered, rumor has it, by our resident CIA spook."

"So, what can I do?"

"Listen to conversations the computers have flagged as suspect, and decide if they're worth a closer look. Only a fraction of a fraction of a percent, thank God – the filtering algorithm's pretty good."

She blinked at the endless rows of phone numbers filling her screen. "Priscilla, are you monitoring _every_cell phone call in the TO?"

"Pretty much. These are just the flagged ones from the last twenty-four hours, of course." Silla moved the mouse at Triela's workstation and guided the cursor around the taskbar at the top of the screen; blocks of phone numbers were highlighted and disappeared. The analyst did this several times, and the page counter shrank from a three-digit figure to two to a single page. "These are flagged calls being spoken in German. Lots of German and French speakers in this region. My French is good, but my German is pretty rusty." She smiled. "I'm sure yours isn't. Just listen in for a few seconds and make a decision to clear off or follow up. Try to keep no more than one out of ten." As she spoke, a couple of new numbers lengthened the list. Silla showed her a menu to select and edit the calls, watched Triela through a couple, then returned to her station.

Triela had never guessed that intelligence work could be so tedious, or eavesdropping so boring. Most of the speakers didn't even seem all that interested in what they were saying. She wondered what had triggered the flags; there was plenty of grumbling against the authorities, but most of it was the sort you could hear anywhere. Occasionally somebody proposed something extreme, like one man who spoke of 'putting all those crooks up against the wall and shooting them', something only a computer would take as a serious threat. If there were any hidden messages in the exchanges, it would take someone cleverer and more devious than her to find them. She wished Monty were here; the suspicious and acerbic-tongued Gen Two would plow through the load like an icebreaker through one-meter sheet, and probably flag many more numbers for closer inspection. But of course the Blackers wouldn't come within kilometers of such a hive of Public Safety activity. Triela skipped through conversations and deleted number after number, and the list shrank.

"Well. We have subjects to interrogate," Priscilla said.

Triela dropped her set around her neck. "Oh?"

"Uh huh. About an hour ago, a bunch of our SRT guys brought in a Sprinter full of Padania foot soldiers, some still kicking, some not. They aren't likely to know much, so we'll save them for last. Charlie and Andrew just came in with one who might be a bit higher up the food chain – not a Padan, a Mafioso with some involvement."

Triela nodded. Involvement in the secession movement by some of Italy's crime families, even ones whose territory lay far to the south, was commonplace. The two groups were natural allies. A weakened central government was all in the criminals' interest; with the resources of the northern provinces denied it, Rome would have a very difficult time checking a crime syndicate that, it was estimated, controlled a quarter of Italy's GDP. The Padania and the Cosa Nostra were, in effect, plotting to divide the country between them.

"And Jean just receipted a Padan who surrendered to Jethro and Monty. _That_fellow looks promising."

Triela huffed. Leave it to Mr. Blacker, she thought, to talk a high-value terrorist into giving up and volunteering information. Of course, they couldn't believe a thing that such a source gave them unless it could be verified or corroborated somehow, but still... "That's good. Are they still here? The Blackers, I mean."

Silla huffed. "As if. They handed him off to somebody in Bolzano. Doubt they even stopped the car, just slowed down and pushed him out the door." She looked over the short list of phone numbers on Triela's display. "Time for something different?"

"Sure," she said, hoping that 'something different' wasn't repeating this ordeal in French.

Priscilla tapped a few keys, and the display changed to a view outside, apparently from a camera mounted atop the trailer. "One of the dishes mounted on the roof is a directional microphone, super sensitive. It's possible that there may be unfriendlies approaching the chateau – Padania who don't know their safehouse is taken, or spies, or maybe even a group of them thinking of taking it back. So we do periodic sweeps with this, looking for any sounds outside our patrol perimeter that don't belong." She showed Triela how to move the dish using the keyboard's arrow keys; the camera, apparently attached to the same mast as the dish, tracked its movements and showed her the general area that she was pointed at. "You can adjust the sensitivity by fiddling with the gain, but a better way is to use the decibel filters." She showed her how the computer would filter out sounds above and below a set level, which served somewhat to focus the microphone on nearer or farther objects rather like a zoom on a camera. She pointed the dish toward the road where Jose stood stealing a smoke; the cigarette's tip glowed, and Triela could hear the muffled rustle and crackle of the paper and tobacco igniting. Then the woman changed the settings on the filters, and Triela's earphones filled with a cacophony of pops and grinding noises that reminded her of an avalanche or a forest fire. Priscilla zoomed the camera to show a distant car coming up the drive, its tires crunching in the gravel. "It takes a little getting used to. Just do a slow three-sixty of the area and log it while I clean up my phone numbers. Then we'll go find something to eat."

Triela experimented, panning the dish slowly while changing its inclination and adjusting the filters. She was used to hearing sounds that unconverted people couldn't, but the dish microphone expanded her awareness of the world around her enormously. The woods around the property were alive with sound no matter how she adjusted the filters: muted footfalls slow and quick, fluttering wings, soft thumps and rustles, and other sounds she couldn't identify, fiddle with the camera as much as she liked. None of it sounded man-made, but how could you be sure? Deep in thought, and paying more attention to her earphones than the view on the monitor, she tapped the pan key again and heard a cough. She started and focused on the screen, but saw only a blank wall. _Not stone. Plywood._ She realized that she was looking at one of the windows shattered in the initial raid. She'd turned the array half around and it was pointed toward the chateau. Then she heard a door open and close, echoing down a hall, and she realized she was hearing sounds _inside_the building.

She held a little conversation with herself with her fingers poised over the keys. Her purpose using this equipment was guarding the house; she had no business listening to anything inside. There was her teammates' privacy to consider. But how could she be sure there was no danger inside the house if she didn't check? Should she consult Priscilla? She glanced at the analyst: Silla was staring blank-eyed at her screen, which was full of numbers. She seemed to be listening hard, and probably thinking hard too. It wouldn't be right to interrupt, she thought, to ask the woman to make a decision for her. Triela adjusted the microphone's settings to probe deeper inside the building.

"_Sounds pretty codependent._" A man's voice. She thought it was one of the SRT guys, but she wasn't sure.

"_Damn right it's codependent._" This voice she recognized, and she held her breath, as if he might hear her as well. "_My life depends on my girl out in the field. I can do stuff with her at my side I wouldn't try with a team. But she hangs on every word I say, trying to second-guess my meanings, and it's amazing how easy it is to hurt her feelings. The way she looks at me sometimes makes me feel like I just stole her cherry. I don't have a life of my own anymore." Glass clinked. "Sometimes being fratello is almost like being married, only…_"

"_Only?_"

"_You know._" The man's voice dropped. "_I haven't gotten laid since I put a gun in her hand. When you're together in public, a second-gen cyborg bodyguard looks a whole lot like a clingy underage girlfriend. Kind of cramps your style, know what I mean?_" A pause, followed by the sort of exhale one makes after a long draught. "_Not that it really matters, I guess. A man with a cyborg to take care of doesn't have much left for another relationship._"

Giving up any pretense of work, Triela brushed an arrow key, and the camera's view shifted slightly upward, pointed at the second-floor bedrooms.

"_Sylvia, you know I like bunking with you, but don't you think you should ask before you borrow my clothes?_"

"_What?_"

"_That shirt. It's mine._"

"_Chiara, I haven't touched your bag. This is mine._"

"_You're sure…_" A zipper being pulled, followed by a rustling sound. "_Well, look at that._"

"_They're just the same. Weird._"

"_Sylvie, does Roberto pick out your clothes?_"

"_Not usually, he just takes me shopping and pays the clerk for what I get. But this was a Christmas gift._"

"_Mine too._"

They said it at the same time. "_Ferro._"

"_I never liked this shirt._"

"_Me neither. I don't like the color. I just wore it because it came from him._"

"_Same here.__Men__._"

"_I wonder who else got one._"

She smiled and made an adjustment to the filters, probing deeper into the structure.

"_Hey, you're back._" Henrietta's voice, followed by a door closing. "_Did Jean send you out already?_"

"_Yep._" Rhythmic thumping noises: Rico, bouncing on a bed again, she supposed. Triela wondered how they'd gotten a room without bunks; perk of being the Croce brothers' cyborgs, she supposed. "_When we went out to rescue Mr. Sandro and Petra._"

"_Are they okay?_"

"_Not a scratch. They got kind of dirty, though. Petra was combing straw out of her hair with her fingers and making faces._"

Giggle. "_Did you shoot anyone?_"

"_Some. Killed one for sure. Maybe wounded two others running through the trees._" The girl lowered her voice."_When I came back, Jean called me his little angel._"

"_No. Really?_"

"_Really. Well, his own little Angel of Death, really, but still._"

She huffed and touched the key again.

"_I'd like to find out what a 'Ndrangheta heavy like you is doing so far away from his usual stomping grounds in Milan._" Andy's voice, cool and patient and disinterested, a clerk waiting on a disagreeable customer.

"_I was on __vacation__,_" said another man. Triela could hear the unspoken words: _you idiot_.

"_I don't believe you, and there's a penalty for that,_" said Andy in the same half-bored tone.

The filters on the microphone must have screened out the actual report, but the gunshot's echo _cracked_in the headphones, making her jump. The subject howled, an animal sound that abruptly ended in a sob.

"_Would you like to answer that question again?_" Andy, still patient, sounding like he could go on like this all night.

"_Okay, okay! I was the money man for an upcoming Padania operation!_"

"_What operation?_" More intent now.

"_I can't tell you!_" A moment later, the man gasped, whether in fear or pain she couldn't tell.

"_What operation?_"

"_They're calling it 'Liberation Day' or something! They needed money to buy the explosives and weapons they were going to use for the operation!_" The man was whimpering now. Triela could sympathize, sort of: _Omerta _made no allowances for breaking under torture. Triela doubted that a man the government had wrung information out of under duress would get the sort of accommodation and protection afforded to a _pentito_like Mario Bossi; when they were done with him, he'd be sent to jail, an easy and inviting target for the criminals he'd betrayed.

"_Who is the operation being launched against?_" Andy went on, merciless, pressing the man hard now that he was broken and talking.

"_I don't know. I'm just the money man!_"

"_You're lying._" Another shot bouncing off the hard walls of the room. The man shrieked; Triela figured Andy must be shooting up his knees or feet or hands. Probably knees, she decided; they hurt something awful, and being threatened with the loss of the use of one's legs had a strong psychological effect, amplifying the discomfort of the injury.

The man gasped, great shocky whoops of air. "_I swear!_" He screamed. "_I don't know anything else!_" He sobbed.

"_I doubt that a man with so many contacts on his mobile phone would be that unapprised of what's going on. Don't hold out on me, Piero. Who's it being planned against?_"

"_I don't know, some government target, I imagine! Oh, you son of a bitch, you took out both my knees!_"

"_I can do much worse._" Andy threatened. "_Another question, how is your lot going to benefit from the operation?_"

She frowned. Surely Andy knew why organized criminals supported the FRF. Unless he was really asking something else… wait, this man belonged to a crime family that operated within the imaginary borders of the Five Republics. Wouldn't that make them rivals for power if the independence movement ever succeeded?

"_Kiss my fucking ass!_" The question had struck a nerve, apparently, provoking a last act of defiance.

A heavy smack, a sound she associated with broken faces. Then creaking noises, the sort that might come from a man bound to a chair, and a strangled grunt. "_You're really trying my patience here, Piero. I'm going to ask you again; how will the 'Ndrangheta benefit from sugar daddying the Five Republics Faction for guns and plastic explosive?_"

"_I don't…know…" _croaked Bandini. _"Ask…Salvatore Moreno…assuming…you can find him…in Italy…anymore…_"

A scrape, as if the chair had been shoved a short distance, followed by heavy breathing. _Two_sets.

"_Hey…_" said Bandini. "_I know you…_" Something in his tone set off Triela's alarms. Suddenly, although his speech was blurry from his facial injuries, the Mafioso didn't sound like a beaten man anymore. "_You're the brother of that little thief who fucked the boss' daughter and stole her Ferrari! So you survived, eh?_" He laughed theatrically, as if playing a villain in a bad movie. "_You and your brother are tougher than I thought…_"

_He's goading you, _she thought at Andy. _He sees a chance to end this, and he..._

She heard a shoe scrape as Andy turned. Bandini kept talking, his voice gathering strength. "_Next time, we'll be sure to shoot you both in the head, and take turns with that hot little bitch in that picture I saw in your apartment—_"

_Don't do it, Andy Don't let him get away before we're done with him…_

A pistol shot. Then another, and another, and another, Andy emptying two pistols into the bound man. Then a dull crash as Andy knocked over the chair.

"Triela, what's wrong?" Priscilla must have been alerted by something on her face; the analyst removed her headset and stood. Instinctively, Triela's finger touched an arrow key as Silla approached and reached for the toggle that turned on the external speaker.

"_I'm telling you, don't be fooled by those big eyes." _One of the bigger girls, Triela couldn't tell which. "_None of the first gens have their heads screwed on right, but she's bughouse crazy._"

"_She's not that bad._"

"_Oh? Did you know she counts her kills? Monthly, yearly, total-to-date… Grades them too, I hear, uses a point scale. I wouldn't be surprised to find out she's got an ear necklace on under that starched white shirt. God help Jose if she ever starts feeling unloved. I don't see how he falls asleep in the same-_"

Silla muted the volume, to the speaker and Triela's headset both, and removed the gear from the girl's head. "I'm sorry, Princess. Kids can be cruel. I guess being cyborg doesn't change that. Let's grab a bite, what do you say?"

**By Dragonfire238**

When Leonard and Abigail got the call to arms, they were hiking through Monte Carmo Mountains on a two day leave from the agency; it would take them a good 5-6 hours to hike back to their vehicle, a 2005 diesel Isuzu trooper with Abigail cursing the Padania the whole way and silently thinking of ways to prank the hell out of the Intel analyst who botched this whole thing up, the supposedly simple mission and her camping trip. Abigail is still fairly new to the Social Welfare Agency and this was her first time off since becoming a cyborg, and the one thing she has learned to hate the most is getting bad Intel especially when it has the potential of harming any of her friends.

Once they finally made it back to the truck to make the 4 and a half hour drive to Moreno it was already around 7pm, but instead of heading straight to the field HQ as ordered the "fratello" made a stop in Trento, a town about 90km south of Moreno to rest up and refuel from their long day of hiking and driving. After resting up for the night at the hotel America Leonard and Abigail went into town to seek out their ulterior motive for coming there, a former Mafiosi courier, by the name of Sabino Gaspare, who now buys and sells anything he can get his hands on, including information. Sabino owns a barber shop on the edge of town, where he makes his dealings out of the back. Abigail and Leonard walk up to the front door to see that the shop is closed but the lights inside are still turned on. They move to the back of the building and see that the door has been jimmied open. Seeing this Leonard immediately removes his Beretta 9mm and affixes a suppressor to the barrel while Abigail does the same for her H&K USP compact .40S&W.

Abigail then whispers to her father "_I hear two maybe three assailants plus Sabino; sounds like they are working him over pretty hard._"

Leonard nods and sets himself up on the door "_I'll breach, you go in and I will follow_"

Abigail returns his nod and Leonard kicks door wide open. Abigail rushes in and takes out two Padanians before turning left to clear that corner; She is immediately followed by her father who sweeps right and takes out a third Padanian. In a span of less than 2 seconds the room is cleared and three Padanians lay dead while Sabino, who has been tied to a chair in the middle of the room, watches everything happen quickly"

"Report one hostile down right side clear, all green." Leonard calls out after finishing his sweep of the room

Abigail who has turned around after completing her sweep to keep an eye on the door replies "All green two hostiles down left side clear"

Sabino trying to get a grasp on the situation exclaims "Holy mother fucking shit Jesus Christ what the fuck."

Leonard looks over towards Sabino "hey watch your mouth there is a lady present" Abigail gives him a half hearted glare.

Sabino growls out "fine but can you get me out of this thing"

"I don't know Mr. Gaspare I kind of like you this way, less running" says Abigail after she glances over to him

"She does have a point Sabino you do look like you want to run away from here" Leonard mentions offhandedly

"Hey I won't run I swear, and who the fuck are you people."

"You should really watch that mouth of yours but be that as it may how about you tell us why they were working you over so hard and maybe we will cut you loose, and I think you already have an idea on just who we are."

Sabino was silent for a few moments while thinking over what to say "I'm guessing you are with those government demons so you probably know of the action that took place yesterday"

Leonard steals a glance at his daughter and replies "Maybe"

Sabino continues "well those guys were under the impression that I leaked out their location, which I didn't," He says with a huff "and they wanted to know what else I might have told them"

"Hmm interesting" Abigail says "and what part did you play in their plans that deemed it so important that they question you about it"

Although Abigail knew that he didn't actually say that he was involved she decided to try fishing a little bit to see if he let something slip.

Sabino remained silent again and started to squirm in his chair some more

"Well we don't have all day Mr. Gaspare" say an annoyed Abigail

"Tell you what" says Leonard "I will untie one of your hands just keep it out front where we can see it" he then unties his left hand from the chair

Sabino sighs "they came to me because I know how to get things and I got them the things they wanted"

"What kind of things" Leonard asks

"Big things"

"I want a list"

"Well I have a record of it but I can't get it tied up like this"

Leonard nods to Abigail who picks up a pair of hair cutting scissors and cuts away Sabino's bindings

"There now go get them" Abigail says "and don't try anything stupid I have my eyes on you"

Sabino walked steadily towards his computer in the corner of the room and types in the password he then prints off a full list of items that the Padanians bought from him. Leonard looked at the list with wide eyes on it was over 1000 pounds of Semtex, a hundred assault rifles, a 60mm and a 120mm mortar tube with 100rnds and 50rnds respectively, sub machine guns, RPG's and a whole crap ton of ammo et cetera. "You have a lot of big things on here, I'm surprised you gave this up so easily" Leonard says while still eyeballing the list.

Sabino looks at him with his bruised face "well getting the shit kicked out of you for no reason tends to change a man's perspective, and they can go to hell for all I care"

Leonard nods and pulls out of his pocket 2000 Euros and a burn phone "you never saw us and it would be best if got away from this place for a while, I also want you to find out where any more of these guys might be hiding and send me a text using that phone, the number is already programmed in" with that Leonard starts to leave followed by Abigail leaving Sabino with the dead Padanian bodies, which Abigail already search for Intel and stripped of weapons. Just as they were about to exit Abigail swiftly turns around and throws the scissors she was holding at the concrete wall next to Sabino's head, imbedding them into the cement. "Oh and one more thing" Leonard says "don't try to double cross us or that _little_ beating will be the least of your worries."

**By KuroNeko**

After taking a rest, Lorraine, being  
off duty for a week has been called off to her assignment and return back to  
headquarters for another mission she would rather avoid. "Not another mission…"  
she muttered, as her eyes shows disgust and hatred to the agency's cold blooded  
way of killing. The only thing she enjoys from joining the agency is revenge  
for her father. Her Walther P99, remnant from her father was ready to kill her  
father's killer as she swears never to stop until all of her debt is settled.

As she walk through the corridor, she  
stumbled with Jose, with Henrietta debriefed from their mission. Covering her  
Face with her long brown hair, she was utterly embarrassed to Jose; she loves  
him secretly to her heart. After Jose walked pass her, Lorraine only see Jose  
in a short moment, only blushing herself as she figured why she was embarrassed  
to Jose. "Are you in love with him?" Priscilla suddenly interrupts her  
illusion. "I was not! It's just….nothing…."she replied, much to her face tells  
otherwise. Priscilla, glaring her, then said "You can't hide the truth you  
know….i see it on your face…." While pointing his finger to Lorraine's face.  
Intentionally to divert the story, she asked Priscilla "how about we go for a  
walk together and discuss something less about that, more about anything?"  
Hearing this, Priscilla replied "what about your Briefing?" Lorraine the  
answered "My briefing can wait…but my hunger can't…" as she pointed her finger  
to her stomach.

Meanwhile, At the Sniper firing range Sherry  
loaded her Magazine clip into her M16A4, adjusted the elevation while laying  
down on the ground, with Yuki, aiming her L96AWS at her side, practiced  
with their marksmanship for the upcoming assignment. Firing shot one round  
after another, Sherry managed to make two shot, two inches grouping at range  
700 meters. "Told you Harunami-chan, I'm very accurate compared to your  
marksmanship..." she boasted herself. "Uhm, Ichiroku-chan, look at my target  
with your scope…"Yuki replied with a flat tone as Sherry pick up her rifle and  
aim down her scope, to her dismay she was shocked to see the result "What?! You  
beat me with grouping of 1.4 inches?" She replied, only watching Yuki smiled to  
her "Told you…I'm unbeatable…" said Yuki, cycling her bolt, dispensing the  
spent 7.62 casing. "Okay…I lost to you, AGAIN…but it doesn't change the fact  
that I will beat you someday…." replied sherry, pointing her left hand to Yuki.  
"I will wait for that sweet moment Ichiroku-chan." responded Yuki.

"Having fun you two?" asked Chiara,  
holding her MC51Carbine in her arm, behind her is Silber, the new first generation  
cyborg; holding her Hecate sniper rifle. "Nope…The fun just started…By the way Chiara,  
I though you didn't like sniping?" asked Yuki. "who says I didn't like Sniping?  
Yes, I didn't like it, but doesn't mean I can't do it..." replied Chiara,  
attaching scope to her G3 battle rifle. "Did anyone see Ai-chan anywhere?"  
asked Silber, wandering around the area, searching for Ai "I forgot to mention  
it…Ai and Soni are together with Yamato and Fio on a field duty at France,  
gathering intelligence or something…" said Yuki, thinking what her sister tells  
her "she will be back in two days early…". Chiara only sighed, and then said "too  
bad she can't join us… if she was here, I would love to play with her…"

While at the same time, Victoria  
Malashenko, with her Handler, Yuri Svezda was training with the Italian Armor  
division. "Is this Training even necessary? I mean, what do I want to do with  
my tank driving skill sir?" Asked Victoria, passed a row of Italian Main Battle  
Tank 'Ariete'. "You will never know when this training comes in handy…"  
Answered Yuri while glancing his eyes to Victoria, her blue-grey Hetechromian  
Eyes make him astonished every time he glance his eyes to her. They arrived at  
their training ground, in front of them is the Gepard self-propelled Anti-air  
gun tank; borrowed from the Germany Bundeswehr Tank battalion specially for  
their training. "What!? an AA tank? Sir,  
you gotta be kiddin me!" shocked Victoria, as she see herself what will she  
used in her training "Now calm down Victoria, the harder the better…"explained  
Yuri.

"Okay Victoria, rotate the turret 90  
degree" ordered Yuri, manning the Commander seat. Victoria responded" yes sir…"  
rotating the Gun turret as ordered." now Victoria, my friend will release some  
UAV drone target, make sure you hit them all" ordered Yuri, checking his  
Headphone. "Okay, here goes the first target…" instructed Yuri, looking to the  
tank main radar system. Victoria, hearing the order, rotated the turret and  
locked on to the target and fired the target with its 30mm dual cannon. Tracer  
round has been loaded into the tank so that Yuri can see the firing. As  
expected from Victoria, she downed all the drone without mishaps "good job  
Victoria, although this is your first time, you seems to get on it.." praised  
Yuri, holding Victoria's head. To her, Victoria only could lower her head,  
blushing and holding both of her hand and said "Thank you sir..." After they  
finished the training, they head back to the agency, given a ride by the "Lynx"  
they requested from the Armor division.

"Ai, prepare to move under my command.."  
ordered Yamato, inserting silencer to his Sig P220 sidearm, which Ai by his  
side. "this is Fio reporting, I count seven hostile, four on the main room and  
the other two located on the top floor, with the high valued target" radio in  
Fio, scouting the Area with her Cyborg, Soni. "Okay Fio, Let it rip…" ordered  
Yamato to Fio, as he signaled her to take down the target in the main room.  
Under Fio's command, Soni unleashed array of fire from her SCAR-H, suppressed  
to avoid intention. Within second, Yamato and Ai stormed the room, before  
killing all, except the last person, the Target, as he draw out Grenade from  
his pocket and ordered them to stand back, he was shot in his finger, just  
before he had the chance to pull the pin, a shot from the window given by Soni  
before he could to that as Yamato restraint the injured target. With the arrest  
of the High Valued Target, Yamato hopes that it will shed a clue in the  
Padanian's relation with other terrorist organization." Call in The cleaner and  
tell Jean, it's finished" Radio in Yamato as he walk from the area with Ai,  
Beretta M12s suppressed in her hand.


	18. Chapter 18

**By Kiskaloo**

**CARROZZERIA MARINOV**

**BARONA QUARTIERE, MILAN COMMUNE**

**THE PREVIOUS DAY**

Hands on her hips, Franca examined the collection of suitcases neatly arranged in a row.

"You were right. We should have just rented a truck," she admitted.

"Probably a bit late for that now," Franco replied.

"With the Agency running them to ground, I'm surprised they're still wanting delivery," Franca noted.

"They paid for the product," her partner said with a shrug.

"We could use the Latitude," he then suggested, indicating the blue Renault sedan Franca had rented.

"We should probably take two cars, just for safety," Franco added.

* * *

**PAGANI RESIDENCE**

**PARCO SOLARI, MILAN**

**LIBERATION DAY MORNING**

"I finally feel human again," Kara noted as she stood before the mirror in the master bathroom and started brushing out her hair.

Michele chose not to reflect on that comment, just as he chose not to reflect that she wore only her undergarments. His entreaties to the Medical Branch had either fallen on deaf ears or Kara somehow continued to work beyond her conditioning. As long as she continued to do so only when they were alone, he'd roll with it.

"Will we be driving with the Minister or taking our own vehicle?" Kara asked.

"We'll meet her at the hotel and then proceed to Monumentale," Michele replied. Milan contained two large cemeteries – the Cimitero Monumentale di Milano and the Cimitero Maggiore di Milano – that were built in the late 19th Century to consolidate the graves from many smaller cemeteries that had become isolated as the city expanded.

This would be Kara's first experience with the Italian version of Liberation Day, though she had strong familiarity with the French version, celebrated on 25 August, thanks to her growing up in Paris. Like France, Italy appeared to take Liberation Day very seriously: towns small and large held parades, concerts and festivals; most businesses not directly related to food services or lodging closed; and families took to the public parks in vast numbers.

Milan expected a crowd numbering in the tens of thousands at the Piazza del Duomo and the Parco Sempione. Already tight security had been increased with the news that Padania were planning to disrupt the event and the Prime Minister had requested Michele and Kara join Minister of Defense Monica Petris' security detail.

Kara walked into the bedroom and approached the closet. Having packed quickly and for mountain operations, she'd had her Chloé Silk Chiffon-Trimmed Crepe Dress and a pair of Chloé glossed-leather knee boots in a deep merlot color overnighted to the chalet.

"What do you think Padania will try?" she asked as she laid the dress out on the bed.

"After the shellacking we've been giving them in the Alto Adige, hopefully nothing," Michele replied.

"Maybe it will be like _Day of the Jackal_," Kara stated as she pulled on her boots. She rose and slipped into the dress, presenting her back to Michele to zip it up.

"The Jackal shot the first man through the door," Michele noted as he placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Then I'll be sure to be in front," Kara said, covering his hand with her own.

* * *

**HOTEL PRINCIPE DI SAVOIA**

**PIAZZA DELLA REPUBLICA 17**

**MILAN**

Michele drove the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano up to the front entrance of the hotel, leaving it with the valet. They were met in the lobby by the head of Hotel Security and escorted up to the Ambassador Suite to meet with Defense Minister Petris.

After being briefed on the itinerary, they proceeded to the garage and boarded the Mercedes S600 Pullman Guard. Because of the width of the road and number of vehicles, the convoy took the most direct route along the Viale Francesco Crispi directly to the Cemetery. Upon arrival, they pulled up in front of the Famedio and quickly ascended the steps into the memorial chapel itself.

Inside, Minister Petris made a speech and placed wreaths at the memorials to the members of the Italian Resistance, soldiers of the Italian Expeditionary Force in Russia and the Italian Army in Russia killed during the Russian Campaign as well as the one for fallen members of the Carabinieri. Afterwards, she spoke with veterans spanning engagements from World War II to Afghanistan and Iraq.

"Looks like nothing is going to happen," Kara stated just inside the entrance as they prepared to leave an hour later.

A moment later she'd come to regret those words as a deep rumble like lightning rolled over the cemetery, sending birds to wing and causing everyone to look up at a cloudless sky. A few people pointed to the southwest and Kara followed their gaze to see a dark cloud boiling up over the direction of Sforza Castle and the Arch of Peace. A moment later, another rumble was heard and another cloud rose, this one to the east.

"You were saying," Michele deadpanned. They retreated back inside and fortified their position as they awaited information. They soon learned that two explosive devices had gone off near Milano Centrale railway station and Milano Cadorna railway station, though neither station itself had been damaged nor were there reports of casualties.

As the onramp to the A4 Autostrade lay less than a kilometer to the northeast and due to the proximity of the Milano Porta Garibaldi railway station to both the cemetery and the hotel, the decision was made to evacuate the Minister. This forced Michele and Kara to call a cab to get them back to the hotel.

The televisions in the hotel lobby were tuned to Rai News, who reported that a rail bridge had been dropped, severing access to Milano Centrale from the north and west. A second bomb in an abandoned car had damaged a bridge on the Viale Marie Curie that spanned the tracks just before Milano Cadorna railway station. The bridge was still standing, but the station was closed while structural engineers were determining the extent of damage.

Kara handled the driving duties back to Michele's residence while the latter called into Jean to report on what had happened in Milan. Hanging up, Michele let out a deep sigh and Kara knew that another "What Went Wrong?" meeting was in their near future.

**By KuroNeko**

"Fio, status report" asked Yamato to Fio.

"So far we can only link the Padanian with the France Mafia branch…not much from it" she replied.

"Ah…our job seems not finished yet….no matter, we'll just finish it till the end…" continued Yamato.

"I'll contact the agency to see I they can provide us more backup" Fio spoke to Yamato.

"Heads up Silber, Chiara, Yuki…Ferro called three of you to her room" surprised Victoria telling them it's Lorraine's order. "What? Now?" asked Silber, Victoria nodded her head.

"Now what trouble did we raised today?" grunted Yuki, putting down her book onto the shelf next to her bed.

"I don't know…Jean told me to call three of you to meet her…"answered Victoria. "Okay…give us 1 minute for us to get ready…" replied Chiara.

Walking passes the corridor, they could see the morning sun shining from the outside, watching other cyborg played together with their friend or handler. At last, they arrived at Lorraine's room. Knocking her room, the door opened and Lorraine Andrea, standing in front of them, then said "Good, you three are now here…follow me…".

Hesitating, Silber asked Lorraine "are we in trouble Miss Andrea?"

Hearing just now, Lorraine answered "Trouble? No sweetie, I'm calling all of you because I have a mission for three of you along with your handlers" turning her head to the right while talking to the girls.

While walking, they came across with the girls handler; Leonardo-Chiara's handler, Bianco-Silber's handler and Kai-Yuki's Handler on their way meeting Director Lorenzo "Ah, it's good to see you here Lorraine, that saved our time finding you…." joked Bianco to her.

"Bianco, you seem pretty sure with your attitude…." commented Lorraine "come, follow me…"she add. Entering Lorenzo's office, the trio handler  
briefed as they will support Yamato and Fio's operation in France.

"Consider its done director!" said Bianco, smiled to him

"I like your attitude Bianco….reminds me of my childhood…" replied Lorenzo to him, Lorraine only glared him as Bianco sent back a flirting look to her.

"We'll take care any trouble when we're in France director….since Bianco here will join us…" reported Kai, after getting briefed.

"Good…I want little to no involvement of you in France, make sure the France government doesn't know your involvement in their country" briefed more Lorenzo.

"Yes sir, Director sir!" responded the three handler.

"Good, now you three can dismissed and pack your things for the mission…"ordered Lorenzo.

"Wow…I'll go to Paris…finally" Silber talked to herself.

"Hold your horses Silber, we're going there only as a support for my sister for their mission…" said Yuki, demotivating Silber.

"Come on you two, we have a job to do…quick pack your gear!" exclaimed Chiara, bringing in her bag to her table, opening it while stuffing her clothes to the  
bag and Placing her MC51carbine to her Amati Cello case, with her other equipment in her case "I'm ready…how about you two?" asked Chiara to the other  
girls .

….

Trees passed the one by one as the TGV Artesia de Jour leaving Italy for France, cruised at the speed of 160km/h, past Torino already, and headed for Paris. "Look at that tree passed us…" enjoyed Silber, holding window of the train with both of her hand.

"Calm down Silber" said Bianco "can I get you anything?" asked him.

"I would like two cup of coffee…."thinking for a while and she add more "maybe with some croissant…"

Only nodding his head, Bianco the said "Okay Sil, I'll get you that…promise me that you'll diet next time, Compri?" asked him to Silber, second thought spin in her head before she nodded her head. Bianco rose from his seat and headed from the first class coach he was seated with the other, to the dining coach.

"Que Puis-je faire Pour vous monsieur?" asked the counter lady, in french language.

"Deux tasses de café et un croissant s'il vous plait" replied Bianco, flirting with the lady in French.  
"Non-sucre ou le sucre?" asked the counter lady.

Bianco then replied to her "Sucre non s'il vousplait…"

Impressed by Bianco, the counter lady then said to him "your French are good" with her French dialect, tempting Bianco.

"Merci" he replied, enticing her in the eyes.

After he returned to the first class, Leonard asked him "are those for me?" making fun to Bianco.

"No, it's for me...and my cyborg…" replied Bianco "go get it yourself…"

Hearing what Bianco just said "sheesh…is it hard to take a joke?" as he rose from his chair, going to the dining car behind the car.

* * *

Seven hour pass after their trip abroad the TGV Artesia De Jour from Milan, they arrived at Gare de Lyon train station, Yamato and Fio waiting for them. "Long journey I see?" poke Yamato as he see Leonardo, Bianco and Kai, tired from their journey.

"I know…the coffee make me woke up the entire journey " Bianco replied, yawned his mouth open "luckily the cotton seat comfort me".

"Come you three, bring your cyborg and your luggage here, you'll rest in the hotel more than you can afford…." said Fio, instructing them to carry their luggage.

"Okay…promises us that you'll give us free meal, compri?" asked Bianco, holding Silber's hand.

"And for the three of you, there's something special waiting for all of you, girls…." said Fio to the girl, Puzzling them.

"Alright!' replied the entire girl, surprised and nervous to wait their surprise….

"So what's the mission?" asked Kai to Yamato.

"We've been tracking the Padanian relation with the other criminal ring surrounding Italy…one of the cle leads us to Lyon…." answered Yamato.

"We thought we solve the case, but another Intel showed up…." interrupted Fio.

"Well, let's start the work" said Bianco, before continuing his sentences "after we get some rest first…"

* * *

"Ah…shit..." muttered Yuki before vomiting on the sewer, since their operation start twenty minutes ago "How could the enemy stand the stench in the sewer?" asked her, disgusted.

"Quit your whining Yuki, what the enemy think is not important now…more important is we cut the head from their body…" warned Yamato, straying around the sewer below Lyon, finding the enemy hiding place.

"We're here…" replied Saber, their contact in France, as she opened the maintenance door, while aiming her G36k to the front. "The sewer connected to the other side of the Catacomb…we can get to their hideout ASAP" she explained.

Walking across the underground room full of bones and skulls of the remaining bodies under the city, Silber asked Chiara "how many people died in this place?" to which Chiara then answered "dunno, maybe hundred, thousand or million…" as they continue their path along the horrid hallway.

"Ai-chan, slow down…we can't catch with you!" said Yamato.

She responded to him "It's okay Yamato-Sama…as if the enemy knew our position…"just she finished the last word, a flashbang, thrown to the floor in front of them

"Flashbang!' yelled Bianco, before the flashbang exploded in front of them. Five second from disoriented, the team manage to recover from the shock, as the crossfire between two side rose.

"Covering fire!" ordered Leonardo, firing his Tar-21 through the narrow pass

"Saber! Cover me, we'll advance together one by one!" ordered Kai while giving suppressing fire with  
his M14 EBR.

"Roger that!" responded Saber as she pulled out her Glock G18 and fired at the enemy in front of them.

As they advance step by step, they'd managed to kill almost all the hostile. While retreating, one of the enemy sew an opportunity, Saber in front of him, & aimed at her. Just before he could pull the trigger, he was shot in the head by Kai. However, the random fire triggered by the downed hostile, hit Saber's leg. "I'm hit!" screamed Saber, holding her right leg

"Are you okay Saber?" asked Bianco to Saber.

"Yes…I could stand it…." broken voices, Saber replied Bianco's concerned question.

"Silber, carry Saber to safety!" ordered Bianco.

"Wait! I can still fight you know!" exclaimed Saber.

"With your condition girl, you would do more harm than good.." he replied, before kissing her in the lip.

Saber only froze, blushed and followed his order, Silber carry her by the shoulder to the nearest room. "Yuki, Ai! Pursue the leader at the front!" ordered Yamato.

"Yes sir!" complied both the twins, Yuki pulled her Beretta 92FS two tone pistol while her sister pulled the Steyr TMP, chasing the enemy.

"Vous le gars! Donnez-moi de couvrir pendant que je cours a mon tour!" ordered the enemy's leader, ordering his two guards to defend him as he make for the run to his ride. Firing their MAT-49 to the girls, they tried to slow down, at least for their boss to escape.

"Sis! Give me your Flashbang!" ordered Ai to her sister, under the cover from the enemy's gunfire. Quickly Yuki throw her M84 stun grenade to her sister, hiding behind the table. After pulling the pin of the stun grenade, Ai throwed the grenade to the enemy position; blinding them for five second. Just before they could recover from their disoriented state, Yuki put two bullets to one of the hostile, one on the chest, one on his left eye while Ai fired her TMP, all of its round to the enemy's body. Both of the sisters advance, chasing for their leader. Unfortunately, they're too late, the enemy's leader managed to escape, riding his car from the building basement. The twins, manage to intersect the car early try to shoot the glass of the car, shattering it, to their dismay the car equipped with bulletproof glass.

After firing all their round to the fleeing car, Yuki report back to her handler "Kai-Sama, the target escaped…we couldn't stop it…" from the microphone in her shirt. Kai responded Yuki's report "that's okay, we'll get him next time…head back to our position…looks like we found out where he will headed next…"

* * *

**By TheScarredMan**

**SWA Compound; Rome**

"Claes," Beatrice said, "are you sure we're allowed in here?"  
"Sure," the other cyborg said, pushing at the double doors and swinging them open. "I come here all the time."  
Even three hours before dinner, and with headquarters half emptied to reinforce the expanding Dolomites operation, the kitchen that served the Agency's dining areas was busy. Bice could see six people, all in white trousers and tee shirts and aprons, moving among the stainless-steel cabinets. Some were pushing carts loaded with containers or carrying pots and utensils; others stood at tables, mixing or chopping ingredients. All of them glanced at the doors as the two girls stepped in, then turned back to their work. One very large man, stirring a big pot on the stove, smiled at them. "Claes," he said.  
"Hello, Chef Renati," Claes said. Beatrice recognized the name, though she had never seen the man: he was the head chef and nutritionist who planned the meals served in the dining hall.  
"Coming in to try your hand again?"  
"Yes, sir." She held up a large paperback book with a picture of a fancy meal on the front. "I have a recipe for a dessert soufflé with lemon and cheese. It looks pretty good."  
"Does it?" He took the book from her hand and riffled through the pages. "Have you ever done a soufflé?"  
"No, sir." She studied the man's ample belly. "But I found the book in my library, and the page is dogeared."  
"Ah." The big man looked down on her a moment, then said in a gentler tone, "Well. Collect all your ingredients first. If you need anything, I'll send 'Cesca for it."  
"Thank you, sir."  
He returned the book and looked Beatrice over, bending slightly over her. "Who's your little friend?"  
"This is Beatrice."  
"Hello," Bice said, feeling a little shy.  
"So now I have a name to go with the stories," the man said, smiling as he straightened. "The little mauve-haired girl, one of two who always come back for seconds when we serve, and seem to eat their own weight at every buffet. The blonde, what's her name?"  
"Ayden," Claes supplied. "The Eating Machine."  
"I like the food," Bice said. Which was true, but she liked the dining hall food mostly because it was food; even if she stuffed herself until she couldn't push another forkful into her mouth, she always felt a little hungry shortly after.  
She'd worried about that a little, But Dr. Vacaro had shaken his head at her concerns. "You're not about to become our first pudgy cyborg. Your body doesn't store excess fat anymore. Whatever the reason for these pangs, they're harmless, and they have nothing to do with your blood sugar." He'd looked at her with the eyes of a man who knew more than he was telling; it occurred to Beatrice to wonder how often she'd gone hungry before she'd come to the Agency.  
Chef Renati beamed at her. "So now you want to learn something about cooking, eh? Good. Claes, let me have a taste when it's done. We may want to put it on the menu somedays."  
"As always, sir." Claes moved off, and Bice followed. They opened cabinets, picking up items, and visited the refrigerator for eggs. When they'd gathered everything on the dark-haired girl's list along with bowls and utensils, they moved toward the back of the kitchen and the oven.  
The oven was huge, separate from the cooktops and set into the wall at shoulder height. Claes set the temperature and began laying out her goods on the nearby counter.  
A short while later, as Beatrice measured ingredients and handed them to her friend, she said, "Chef Renati sure smiles a lot."  
"He's a happy man." Claes cradled the big bowl in her arm. Ignoring the mixer, she was beating the mixture by hand with a long-handled wooden spoon.  
"I don't think I've ever been happy. Really, I'm not sure I want to."  
"That seems an odd attitude."  
"Well, what's it good for? People who say they're happy smile a lot, and get silly over unimportant things. It's harmless enough, I suppose, but why does everyone want it?"  
Claes paused and used a knuckle to push her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. "I think if you need it explained to you, the explanation won't make any sense."  
Beatrice stared into the bowl at the sunny-looking mixture. "Maybe I just don't deserve to be happy."  
"I don't think happiness is a gift to be given, or a reward to be earned. It's a prize to be taken."  
"That's too deep. Where did you read that?"  
"The Book of Claes, Volume One. Or possibly Two." She tapped her spoon on the edge of the bowl and presented the batter-coated end to her companion. "Taste."  
Bice licked off a bit of the mixture. The flavors of cheese and spices, sweet and faintly tart, filled her mouth and nose. "It's good."  
The dark-haired girl handed her the spoon and reached for a rubber spatula. "Careful there," she said as she scraped the bowl's contents into the baking pan. "For a moment, it looked like you might smile."  
"Bice?" Bernardo's voice from the door, hidden from view by racks and equipment. "Are you in here?"  
"Back here," Beatrice said. "By the oven."  
A moment later her handler appeared. He eyed the sticky spoon in her hand and quirked a smile. "Claes will have to finish that by herself. We have work to do."  
Beatrice frowned. "I thought we weren't going back to Naples until tomorrow."  
"That job is on hold. We're headed north." He touched a fingertip to her spoon and claimed a small sample. "Where I'm sure that pert little nose of yours will be getting a workout." He licked his finger, and his eyebrows rose in appreciation. "Hm."  
"I promised her a portion." Claes opened the oven door, sending a little puff of hot air among the three of them, and slid the pan in. "If you aren't leaving in less than an hour."  
Bernardo smiled down at the handlerless girl, and then at his own. "If you could stretch that offer to two portions… maybe we could find something important to do for awhile."

* * *

**ALTO ADIGE**

Triela trudged alone through the dim woods around the safehouse, lost in her thoughts and worries. She'd had her examination. The doctors had probed and prodded, verbally and physically. She'd described her unsettling vision in more detail than she'd ever wanted to relive. They'd brought one of those helmets that they used during her regular checkups, and she'd dreamily answered more questions while it charted the electrical activity of her brain. They'd conferred and consulted for half a day before they'd rendered their opinion.

Their conclusion: they didn't know what had happened to her.

"The conditioning drugs are experimental," they'd told her at least three times. "Straight from lab animals to you without clinical testing. They're a radically different from established pharmaceuticals used to treat neurological disorders. There are bound to be side effects."

_Like idiocy and premature death_, she'd thought, but of course she hadn't said it. "Is it going to happen again?"

The doctor had shrugged. "We don't know that either. Did you have any warning?"

She'd thought about it. "Sort of."

He'd leaned forward. "Do you think you could tell if your symptoms were returning?"

Something in the man's tone had warned her. If she said no, she wouldn't be allowed in the field ever again. She'd nodded. "I won't be taken by surprise a second time."

He'd studied her a moment more, then nodded. "All right. Report to the infirmary immediately if you feel it coming on. Observing the episode as it occurs may be the only way to diagnose and treat the problem."

"I will." She'd left in a hurry, before he realized he hadn't specifically restricted her to the safehouse and corrected the oversight. She'd found Hilshire waiting for her, and had hung a look of relief on her face as she'd told him that the doctors hadn't found anything wrong, hadn't prescribed any treatment or medication, and had just told her to see them if it happened again.

She should have known he'd talk to the doctors himself.

'_On reserve',_ she thought bitterly as she stomped down the path. '_House arrest' is more like it._

She emerged from the trees and gazed towards the main building a hundred meters away, and spied a strange car pulled up at the entrance: the messenger from Section One, she supposed, delivering Draghi's dossiers on the probable makers of the 'Liberation Day' group's clever bombs. The door opened and a man got out. Triela stared: it was Alonzo, one of Director Draghi's men she recognized – too well - from the Section One squadroom. Alonzo was the chief reason Hilshire had quit taking her to Section One to cool her heels while he conducted his business there. She remembered her last time in that large busy room, waiting with her back against the wall for her handler to return from Draghi's office, enduring the glances of all those men and their strangely knowing eyes. She flushed, just as she had that day, but this time it was anger that brought the blood to her face.

Alonzo went inside. Impulsively, she hurried to follow, and reached the door a minute later. She entered the chalet and found the small foyer already empty. She thought a moment, then headed for the ground-floor storage room which Jean had converted to an office. On the way, she passed by the rustically-furnished common room, which served as a sort of ready room and was usually busy with cyborgs and adults waiting for assignments. But, when she stuck her head in the doorway, she found Alonzo sitting alone on the room's worn couch.

She doubted the room had been empty when he'd entered; the two Sections generally didn't get along very well, the cyborg contingent and Draghi's staff especially. On her final visit to Section One's squadroom, she'd overheard comments Alonzo had made to his coworkers not intended for her ears. He'd referred to her as 'the German's little blonde blowup doll' and made vulgar speculations about her and Hilshire's relationship. Her reaction had halted work throughout the big room, and prompted her handler to tell Director Draghi himself that he wouldn't be bringing 'his Triela' through the doors of Section One again.

Alonzo was leafing through a magazine, trying not to look uncomfortable. He glanced up at the doorway, then quickly stuck his nose back in the periodical. Triela wondered if he'd gotten in any trouble –not for upsetting her, certainly, but for pissing off her handler. Whatever else one might say about him, Director Draghi was polite and courteous to Section Two personnel, regardless of their job, and seemed to have a grudging respect for Victor Hilshire. Perhaps sending Alonzo into this cyborg den far from his friends for a little turnabout was intended as a punishment. Whatever the reason, Alonzo was alone in the normally-busy room and trying hard not to notice her standing in the doorway.

She intended that not to happen. She entered the room and sat on the couch, resting an elbow on its heavy wooden arm. She didn't glance his way, acting as if she, too, was alone in the room. Alonzo was sitting in the middle, close enough to touch; he stiffened, but didn't slide over to put more room between them. She picked up a magazine and began turning pages. After a minute, she spoke in a low voice, still not looking at him. "He didn't order me from a catalog, and I wasn't delivered to him in a plain brown package. He rescued me in Amsterdam." She'd practiced this speech in her head many times, sure she'd never get a chance to recite it, but taking some comfort from the fantasy confrontation; now that her unlooked-for opportunity had presented itself, the words fell easily off her lips. "I see you don't understand. Ask your friends in the squadroom. I'm sure some of them used to be real cops. They can explain it all in detail."

She turned a page. The magazine was some sort of travel guide, full of beautiful pictures, but she didn't recognize the location. There was a canal in one of the shots, but she'd been to Venice, and it didn't look familiar. The surroundings seemed hotter and drier, and she guessed it lay farther to the south than that fabled city. "The short of it is, I was kidnapped, stolen. Sold. I don't remember any of it. That's part of what conditioning is about. But I found out anyway."

She turned another page: a restaurant scene. The big high-ceilinged room looked like it had been a church once. But the air seemed more that of a rustic backcountry inn, crowded with heavy wooden tables and colorful decorations. The place was full and busy, its patrons seeming in no hurry to leave, enjoying one another's company as much as the food. "When the men who bought me tired of me – or used me up, I suppose – they decided to make back their money by torturing me to death in front of a camera. There are markets for such things, lucrative ones. They were just about done when Hilshire and his partner shot their way into the warehouse they were using for a studio. His partner was wounded, mortally, but they kept going until they found me, just in time. Or a little too late or too soon, depending on how you feel about what happened after."

She turned another page, this one showing gaily dressed children playing in a narrow old city street; she could almost hear their voices ringing off the stone. "His partner died in the warehouse. But she lived long enough to give me CPR, get my heart and lungs working again. He promised her that he'd save me, take care of me, give me a life. That he'd see that her sacrifice had meant something." The page blurred; she blinked, and it cleared. "And he's done that, as best he could. He turned his back on his career and came to the Agency for me. They put me together again, brought me back to life, and gave me to him." The page blurred again, and she felt dampness on her cheeks, but she kept her voice steady. "I would do anything for him, absolutely anything. But aside from what we do for the Agency, he's never asked anything of me a good father couldn't ask of his child. And I will pull the tongue out of the next man I hear hint that he's a pedophile."

The last statement was pure bluff. She was sure her conditioning wouldn't allow her to harm an Agency man who wasn't threatening her handler. Then, she had a thought. Maybe … would attacking Hilshire's character, trying to soil his reputation, be considered some sort of threat? Might it untie her hands a little, at least to the extent of allowing her to bend back some fingers?

Victor Hilshire stepped out of Jean's office to call for Alonzo, and found the man sitting, ashen-faced, next to his cyborg on the wood-framed old couch, both of them gripping magazines that neither appeared to be reading. Tears jeweled Triela's lashes, but she was smiling down at the page. Alonzo looked up at Hilshire as if the Section Two man had come to kill him. Hilshire said stiffly, "Mr. Croce is ready for you now," and stepped aside as the man popped to his feet and hurried out the door. He entered the room and fixed his gaze on Triela, whose smile was now aimed at him. "What did he do?"

"Nothing," she said. "He didn't say a word to me." She lifted the magazine in her hands. "This place is so beautiful. Do you think we could go there sometime?"

**By EverFrost**

"White Knight, this is Huntress. Gimme an ETA on arrival to drop point?" The young woman sat down in her seat, alone, in the empty cargo bay of a Hercules. She wore a jet black, skin tight, stealth suit with a streamlined backpack, and a large pack above that. She had all of the tools needed to survive for weeks on end, and could use enemy gear, so ammo would be no problem.

"Ten mikes to drop, ten to drop." A young man stepped down from the cockpit. "Gear check. Stand up ma'am." He walked over to the young woman. "Just say yes or no."

The woman nodded, and stood up.

"We don't usually do solo ops, especially with a rarity like yourself. Gen three, right? Regardless, your handler is in a safe place, and she gave her gear package to us before you arrived." He handed her a mid size duffle bag, which she opened.

"One TDI Vector smg, suppressed."

"Yes."

"One M16A4, suppressed, with ACOG."

"Yes." They ran down the list, and she clipped the bag to her waist, at the front.

"Drop in 30 seconds. Approach tail section." The woman did so. "Good luck Isabella, sorry, Huntress."

"Sorry you couldn't drop with me Isaac."

"Next time babe, base has me on logistics for a week since that thing in Turin." He kisses her as the ramp opens. "Jump is go, green light, give em hell Huntress."

Isabella gives a quick salute and sprints off the deck, into the howling dark. She curled into a ball, before going into a straight dive. Below her was a valley, with many trees and a small lake. She could make out a faint blip of light near the lake. "Got eyes on one of the suspected locations. Setting waypoint, how copy?"

"Devine Red copies all, proceed to target." Her handler spoke over the comm. "Good luck kid."

She waited a few seconds before pulling her ripcord. She jolted up a bit as the chute caught air, before finally drifting slowly to the ground. "Tell me why you couldn't come with?"

"I couldn't risk exposure. One operative can do what two cannot. Get in undetected, kill or capture who you can. Once we get confirmation from you on capture of the hide site, I'll roll in with a small team and link up with you, capito?"

"Yeah, grazie." She said before landing with a grunt. She unclipped her bag, and cut the chute harness. "On station, start the clock."

"Roger, radio silence until confirmation of target structure. Devine Red, out."

She took her gear from her bag, holstering her Vector, and packing her suits backpack with two First Strike Rations and a light survival pack, before taking her M16A4 and moving out quietly to the target location.

She knelt down by a tree, fifty feet away from the suspected hideout. Isabella aimed down her ACOG, looking for any tasty targets to put fresh holes in if the need arose. She found nothing, and approached the house, crawling under the porch and into a small vent under the main structure of the house. She snaked to the right, before spotting another vent, and crawling out into a closet.

Isabella waited for anything that would be cause to confirm this as the location. Seeing noone, she slowly moved out to a staircase, and heard footsteps coming from upstairs. She hid, before one man came down, wearing forest camo. He had a Russian MP443 Grach pistol by his side. But he clearly wasn't Russian. FRF, she's seen them before, common as they were down south.

She waited for him to get closer, before silently moving out of the closet and grabbing the man, to ensure he couldnt move, she tied his arms in 3 different places, and slammed her boots down on his legs while keeping his mouth clamped shut. She then double tapes his mouth shut, and closes the door, walking quietly upstairs.

Spotting an FRF soldier, and putting 3 rounds in him, before walking into a kitchen, and popping the two soldiers in there. She clears the first floor and flies up to the second, where the command center and armory lay. There was one man in the command center, who she tied up.

"Site confirmed and secured. Too few foot mobiles, gotta assume theres a vehicle patrol out there." She saw headlights, as a small Mercedes Sprinter van arrived. She set her M16 in the window, before taking out the driver and the tires. A squad piled out and each were greeted by a 5.56mm round to the skull.

"Site secured. Get out here as quick as you can Devine."

"Understood, en route." Carolina said in a pleased tone.

Isabella walked to the armory, looking at what was there, before checking on her prisoners. She wasn't questioning them until Carolina arrived so she sat by the living room, where the front and back doors were, waiting for her handler.

**By KuroNeko**

"Okay…" said Bianco, he ordered Silber to shoot the man's left foot.

Screaming after being shot by Silber, the man then said "Tu es fou! Je ne vous dis!" Silber shot his right leg and still the man replied the same "Je ne vous dis!"

"I got their location…it's in Tyrol, Austria…." Said Bianco, finished interrogating the captive

"What about the captive?" asked Fio.

After being asked by Fio, Bianco pulled his Beretta 92 and shoots the man, point blank to the head "What about him?" he said. Kai only shook his head as they leave the mess and headed to Tyrol.

**Hotel  
Garni Glockenstuhl, Mayrhofen, Austria**

"Leonardo is with his cyborg, conducting patrol near the mountain where the target last seen by our scout…while Bianco enjoy the 'sightseeing' around the town…" said Lorraine.

"Yuki-Chan, we'll be there after we finish our job!" delighted Ai, to her sister; Yuki then said "are you sure? Well then we have to get ready with our sweater, it's cold down here. "Shivered from the cold, Yuki wrapped herself in a blanket. "Come on Yuki, breathe the fresh alps air!" exclaimed Ai as she pulled Yuki's blanket out from her body .

"Kya! Ai! Give me back my blanket dammit!" angered Yuki as she chased her sister around the room.

As they watch the twins play with each other, Kai then said to his friend, Yamato sitting next to him "I wonder what's it feels like when these two girl live by their ordinary life…."

Upon hearing Kai's word, Yamato then said to him "too bad both of them suffered so much in their life…."

"Flirting someone Bianco?" teased Saber, coming from nowhere, with Yarrow next to her.

"Saber, my darling…" replied Bianco. Just before he could hug Saber, his face was slapped by Saber.  
"This is for putting me behind the fight you rascal!" said Saber before kissing him "and this is for kissing me…"

* * *

"Any movement in the cottage?" inquired Yarrow to his Cyborg.

"Five hostiles signore, another four more inside the barn" reported Gattonero to him. As they watch  
the cottage 155 meters away, Leonardo's team, with Kai and Saber, move from the southeast.

"We're in position, Yamato, move up" ordered Kai to him.  
"Roger….Moving.." replied Yamato, as he drove his car to the cottage, disguising as a lost tourist.

"Nice job Gattonero…" praised Yamato as he gave the go-signal to Leonardo. "Okay guys, let's move out."

Cocking his UMP-45, Leonardo moved silently across the bush, behind the cottage. "Yarrow, eliminate the guard in front…" ordered Leonardo, as the slither silently to the3 back door.

"Roger that…" as Yarrow give the signal, Gattonero aimed the Suppressed PGM Hecate II she borrowed from silber and shoot the the guard at the balcony.

"Target as good as down…" reported Yarrow, looking with his binoculars. "Gattonero, enemy, 157 meters away, wind 5 knot, push to right, fire when ready" instructed Yarrow. Quickly she calculated and shot the .50 caliber round to the second enemy, killing the guard.

"Okay team, let's move!" ordered Leonardo, as they ran to the back door. Once they arrived at the back, Leonardo asked Saber for a flash bang "Chiara, get ready to breach..." Chiara, standing next to the door, prepare to breach the room. Using her Benelli M3 shotgun, Saber shot the hinge of the door, two times, making the door opened. Quickly Chiara tossed thee flashbang grenades and breached the room, followed by Yuki in her back.  
"Enemy!" exclaimed Saber as all of them entered the back door, Lorraine spit all her shotgun shell to the target, killing one of them in the crossfire.

One of the escaping enemies ran to the open, towards the wood. "Gotcha on my scope…." Gattonero aimed from her sniping hideout.

"Gattonero, shoot to wound…." ordered Yarrow as Gattonero aimed the enemy's leg. Shortly afterward, the enemy fell down, his leg were blown to pieces by the .50 caliber shot.

Quickly Yamato and Ai apprehend the last suspect. "Next time, use the smaller caliber please?" commented Yamato. As they apprehend the remaining hostile, the high valued target arrested by Leonardo and Chiara

"HVT is arrested, I repeat HVT is arrested" Saber reported, hugging Bianco from behind, then  
asking him "When shall we play together?"


	19. Chapter 19

**By KuroNeko**

"Still in trouble again Petra?" Soni asked.  
"Well, we escaped from another mess.." replied Petrushka to her, she read a magazine in her hand.  
"It would be a lucky mission if i join in the party..." said Gattonero, before a pillow was thrown in her face.  
"With your bad luck Gattonero, I fear we might get into trouble...again..." said Soni, after throwing the pillow.  
As they talk to each other, Yuki and Ai entered the room "Bonjour vos trois, Madame Petra, Soni, Nero!" In their hands, each carried a basketful of souvenirs from France and Austria "Here, come and join us!"  
As she crawled from the bed, Petrushka grabbed some croissant from the basket and opened the wrapping. "Where did you get this?" she asked.  
"Saber gave this to us...she said it's for Bianco, but he give this to me...so I decided to share this with all of you" replied Ai, giving Gattonero two gifts. "Here Gattonero, give this to Kara, if she returns from Michele's home, okay?"  
"What's this?" asked Gatto looking to the gift wrapping then opened it "Aw cute!, where did you get this?" surprised to see the gift was actually a doll, Black cat plushies.  
"Oh, that one? I got it from a souvenir shop in Gare De Lyon Train station...since you are a black cat, then i decided to buy you that thing" said Yuki, eating biscuit she bought from France. "Since you arrived as our backup in Tyrol, my plan was to give that to you...but our job made me cancel that idea..." she added.  
"Thank you very much, Yuki!" thanked Gattonero as she hugged Yuki with her hand.

Walking through the corridor with some books in her hand, Victoria looked out the window; she could see cloud floating together, grey in color. "Chert! My clothes are outside!" Victoria then ran to her room, then she ran back outside to pick her clothing outside. "Damn...why on this day, it's start to rain? Pain in my neck for carrying this clothes" said Victoria, carrying basketful of her clothes. As she entered the dorm,Victoria collided with Silber, spilling the dress to the floor. "Sorry, sorry,sorry!" Victoria apologized bowing her head.  
"It's okay Vic, no harm done" Silber replied, helping Victoria picking her dress. "What's the hurry Vic?" asked Silber.  
"Raining" a simple answer come out from Victoria's mouth.  
"Can i help you?" asked Silber, favoring Victoria.  
"Sure, be my guest!"

Listening to her favorite music via headphones, Lorraine spent her day off at the library, reading some books and by one book from the shelf, she finished reading bored, she headed from the library to the park she walked across the pathway, she encountered with Priscilla, along with Claes with her.  
"How's your day off Lorraine?" asked Priscilla.  
"Don't ask..."  
"Bored to death?"  
"Probably..."  
"Oh, almost forgot, Director Lorenzo called you..."  
"What? What does the Section 2 want with me?"  
"Don't know..he ordered you to come to his office"  
"Im...I don't remember anything that cause me a trouble..."  
"Better hurry Lorraine, or Director Lorenzo will be angry at you, right girl?" Priscilla looked to Claes.

"Lorraine Andrea reporting sir..."  
"Good, you're here..."  
"What's the matter sir?" asked Lorraine. Next to her Kai sat in a chair.  
"Well, Kai here offered me to consider you joining the Section 2. The question is, do you agree?"  
Her breath was stuck, her eyes widening, her hand trembled, Lorraine only nodded her head, speechless as she looked directly to Kai sitting next to her.  
"Since you agree with the offer, then I'll assign you with Kai. Before that, we must find you a cyborg."  
"Roger that Sir..." Still trembling from the offer she received, she head out from Director Lorenzo's room, with Kai behind her.

Yuki, stood behind her handler Kai as they watched another patient dossier offered to them. "How about this, Lorraine?" suggested Kai.  
"Uhm...this will be good" said Lorraine as she check the dossier handed to her.  
"Patient 134291, name Christine Michael, victim of hit and run..."  
"That will do for us now...thanks doctor."  
After selecting the patient Lorraine waited in the lobby, anxious, still surprised and confused about what happened today, her last day off ruined, at the same time an offering knocking down to her.  
"Do you have a name for the girl, Lorraine?" asked Kai.  
"Uhm...yeah...her name will be Enrica, Enrica Cornacchia" she replied, holding her hand tighly.  
"What's the matter Lorraine?" asked Kai, sitting next to her.  
"Uhm nothing." She blushed, shy, and trembled to see him sitting next to her.  
"Calm down Lorraine-San" Kai tried to calm down Lorraine.  
"I'ts nothing Kai...it's just..."  
"Anything bothering you, tell me...we'll solve this together."  
"Well..." her face turned red.  
"Don't worry Lorraine-San...I'll be here if there's any trouble." He kissed Lorraine in the lips. Next thing happened; Lorraine passed out.  
"Lorraine-San, are you okay?"  
"Let me help Kai-Sama" interfered Yuki, helping Lorraine to get up.

**By TheScarredMan**

The man sitting at the bare table in the interrogation room stirred restlessly, producing a rattle from the handcuffs shackling his wrists to the chair arms. He'd been sitting here forever, it seemed, with nothing to do but stare at the bare walls and think. He'd been replaying the ride to this place, lying bound on the floor of the big van with the bloody corpse of an old friend pressing down on top of him. _And they call us terrorists and criminals_, he thought. He stared at the table's surface, hands clenching. He wondered if he was going to be tortured; it seemed likely. It was against official policy, he knew, even for 'terrorists', but these people didn't seem overly respectful of rules. It was a very bad sign, he thought, that this room had no observation window, or even a camera set up. It had been recently cleaned, judging from the smell, but beneath the odor of disinfectant, he thought he could still catch the scent of gunpowder … and, unless his fear was supplying it, blood.

The door opened. His heart skipped a beat, but he resolved to be brave. He lifted his chin, took one look across the table to the doorway… and couldn't help giving a little snort. "Which one of _you _is going to play the bad cop?"

Just inside the doorway stood two girls in their early- or mid-teens: still centimeters short of their full height, figures just budding. One was tawny-haired, a mixture of blonde and light brown with hints of red, a soft mantle cascading in waves about her shoulders; the other wore a very long ponytail over one shoulder as black and shiny as the inside of a raven's wing. The blonde was in a sort of shopgirl outfit, a knee-length skirt and matching blazer over a collared shirt, and carried a file folder; the other wore tight jeans, boots, and a black leather jacket, all studs and buckles, and stood with her hands in its pockets. Aside from being the same age, they were about as dissimilar as two girls the same race could be, he thought – until he looked in their eyes: identically shaped and lashed, and the same clear gray. He suddenly realized their facial features were identical. _Twins? Or…_

The girls didn't answer, just regarded him with a sort of detached scrutiny that suddenly made them seem years older. Then he remembered how he'd got here, and the rumors and stories about Public Safety's 'special ops' sections, and he realized the smirk had slipped off his face.

The blonde turned her head toward her companion, giving her an expectant look. The dark-haired girl said, "I did it last time."

"But you're so _good _at it," the blonde wheedled.

"Oh, fine, then." She stepped toward him, the blonde following a step behind, and shrugged out of her coat. Underneath, she wore a camisole top that bared her shoulders and exposed a great deal of skin below her collarbones as well, drawing the eyes to her modest bosom. When she reached the empty chair on her side of the table, she hung the heavy leather garment across its back, arranging it carefully. She caught his eyes on her and gave him a feline little smile. Then she unbound her tail and shook her head, and her hair fell down her back like black silk. She combed her fingers through it, lifting it by the handful and pulling it straight out sideways until it slipped free, just past her elbows, to fall over her bare shoulders. "Let's all get comfortable. They gave you the keys, didn't they, Kristal? Get those things off him."

"Okay." The blonde, Kristal, produced the key to his cuffs and removed them, from his wrists and the chair both, and slipped them into her jacket pocket.

He rubbed his wrists. "Is this supposed to make us friends or something?"

"No," said the dark-haired one, winding a lock at her temple around a forefinger. "Handcuffs simply aren't to my taste." She lowered her lashes and smiled again. "Though, under the right circumstances, I might be persuaded. Would you like some coffee?"

He swallowed. "What?"

"Coffee. How do you take it?"

"Black." His stomach rumbled. He'd been given not a morsel since he'd been captured, and only a little water. "No. Cream and sugar, extra."

She nodded and turned for the door, giving him a view of denim-sheathed derriere and bare shoulder blades. When it closed behind her, the blonde said, "Well. She's taking this 'bad cop' thing a little far. She must be feeling mean today."

"What?" He frowned. "She's not really getting coffee?"

"Oh, sure. But you haven't tasted the coffee here." She made a face and sat across from him. "There are maybe six people in Section Two who know how to brew a decent cup. I don't think any of them are here right now. What you get will probably taste like it was poured through a dirty sock." She opened the folder and started reading, idly brushing a thumb along the edges of the stacked papers and making a soft card-shuffling sound.

He stared at the folder, which was as thick as his thumb. Some of the pages had edges that were frayed and discolored. How long had they been watching him, and how much did they really know? He'd been so careful. If they knew who he'd been talking to, the plans they'd been working on for months…

"Italo Montefiore. You're a master carpenter, really? And a contractor? Worked on some pretty impressive projects too, I see."

_They know._He pulled his eyes off the file and focused on the door behind her, keeping his face impassive, giving away nothing.

She didn't look up, just continued to read. "I always imagine FRF gunsels as being broke and unemployable, hirelings or easy dupes for the rich guys who want to run Northern Italy as they please. I know better, but it still surprises sometimes, to see a man of your talents in their camp."

"If I was unemployable," he growled, "I'd be a government supporter." He stilled, surprised at himself, and shut his mouth.

She nodded, eyes still on her reading. "The socialist government wants to pick the working man's pocket to buy the votes of the indolent and unwashed mob. It imposes crushing taxes and crazy regulations that stifle enterprise and make it impossible for the middle class to prosper, in order to keep the North under Rome's thumb. The only reasonable course of action is opposition."

He scowled. "If you understand, how can you work for them?"

She looked up and met his eyes. "I didn't say I believed any of it. I was quoting a man we had in custody a few weeks ago. He seemed to think that drivel justified planting a bomb under a car with a pregnant woman and a twelve-year-old girl in it, just because the driver made a few speeches he didn't like." Her eyes dropped back to her reading. "Well, the girl didn't go to waste, at least."

He felt a chill. "I would never…"

"Really? What is it you and your friends are doing all over South Tyrol? Do you really think when those things go off no one is going to get hurt?"

_They don't know. Just hold out for half a day, and it will be too late._"I want a lawyer. You can't hold me here without-"

"Don't." She turned a few pages more.

"Don't what?"

"Don't be troublesome. It's hard enough keeping Jean from walking in here and shooting you as it is." At his look she said, "Jean Croce. I'm sure you heard about what happened to his father, his mother, his little sister, and his fiancée. He thinks there's a special place in Hell waiting for Padan bombers."

The door opened, and the dark-haired girl appeared with three steaming mugs on a tray. "Fresh-brewed. I got us all some." She set a mug in front of her seated partner; it smelled delicious. Then she circled the table and came up behind him. She bent over his shoulder to place his mug down. Her hair fell on his neck, brushing softly across it, and goosebumps rose on his arms. He caught her perfume: not floral, but heady and enticing. _Nothing for a young girl to be wearing._He inhaled slowly, filling his nose with it.

"Temptation," she said, her face a double handwidth from his.

He blinked. "What?"

"The name of my perfume." Another sly little smile. "In case you're thinking of buying it for your wife."

"He's not married," said Kristal, closing her file. "If you're looking at the tan line on his finger, it's from a lodge ring. They must have taken it from him during processing."

"Well." The dark girl straightened. "It's good to know you have other interests besides the RF. Men with only one thing on their minds all the time can be so tiresome. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"I don't think that's any of your business," he said.

"Well, pardon _me_," she said, her manner changing instantly. "I'm just trying to be pleasant." She snatched his mug back from the table, slopping some coffee to form a puddle on its surface. "I'm sure you don't want any gifts from me either."

The blonde said, "Vee…" "_Fine_." She slammed the mug back down in front of him, sending still more brew rocketing up out of the vessel, and turned away, crossing her arms.

"I'm sorry." It slipped out of him unthinking. He went on, "I don't have a girlfriend." It wasn't true, but he wasn't about to divulge anything that might be used to pressure him. Her posture remained stiff for another moment, then relaxed. He picked up the mug and took a sip of the hot brew. It was as good as it smelled, and if it had been just a bit cooler, he would have gulped it down until it was gone. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said in a small voice. "Sorry." Then she turned and said brightly, "Do you follow football? I'm a big Malaga fan. I suppose you're behind AC Milan. What do you think of our chances against you this year?"

He blinked. "Well… Milan is fielding its best side in years. Malaga's not bad … There's always a chance, I suppose."

Her face turned fierce. "We're going to kick your butts, and you know it." Then she smiled. "No, you don't. You're sure we don't have a chance. You're just being polite."

After some undetermined time (it seemed like an hour, but he had no watch, and there was no clock in the room), Montefiore decided that these two couldn't be interrogators. He'd wondered at first about the blonde, Kristal; she seemed far the more serious of the two. But she hardly spoke, alternating her study of the file she'd brought with bemused observation of the other girl's antics. The dark girl, Vee, asked no questions of importance – she did most of the talking, in fact – and seemed perfectly satisfied with the short and noncommittal answers he gave her. She was actually an entertaining little loon, easy on the eyes, and given to mercurial moods that added or shaved off decades of apparent age instantly; conversing with her was leaving him a little breathless and pleasantly dizzy.

_Amateurs_, he thought with a mixture of contempt and hope. To think that he'd given those stupid stories some credence, and imagined these two might be some sort of ruthless Government killing machines! The investigators must not think him important enough to merit serious attention, that was all, and had sent these babysitters just to-

Kristal closed her file. "Done."

Vee had been bending over him as she spoke, using wide gestures to punctuate her sentences and sending faint traces of her shampoo and perfume his way. She stopped mid-sentence and straightened. "Hand me my jacket," she said in a businesslike voice. Kristal stood, removed the black leather jacket from the chair back, and passed it to the other girl. Vee slipped it on and pulled her long hair out of its collar.

He glanced from one to the other. "What's going on?"

Kristal bound her hair in a ponytail with an elastic band. "It's time to get started."

He glanced at the door, but it was still closed.

Vee rounded the table and stood behind him. "Hang on." The chair tipped back and pulled away from the table. His hands clenched on the chair arms – not because he was afraid of falling; because this girl half his size was dragging his chair with no more effort than if it was empty.

She righted it near the center of the room. "Don't move." She began to twist her waist-length tresses into a rope. "She's not being entirely accurate. Really, the interrogation began when we walked through the door and I started bad-copping you." She returned his stare with a raised eyebrow. "A hundred-kilo man would have done it differently, I'm sure, but the object would be the same. Stress the subject, usually through threats and intimidation. Provoke a range of responses to observe, and distract him from noticing how closely my partner is watching him. I didn't have to threaten you or push you around to make you feel intimidated. I just batted my eyelashes at you." She coiled her hair at the back of her head in a series of short loops and secured them with a clip from her jacket pocket. "Now that Kristal's established your response baseline, it's time for the main event."

Kristal rounded the table to stand in front of him. "It's amazing, really, all the involuntary and unconscious message traffic a person gives up – body language, voice stress, microexpressions… a whole second conversation, really. The skin on the back of your hands tells more than you would ever guess." She combed back a loose tendril of hair and trapped it behind her ear. "And biometrics, especially for an observer with enhanced senses. Right now, in this hard-walled little room, I can hear your heartbeat and respiration, clear as speech. Woo, did you catch that?"

Behind him, Vee rested her hands on his shoulders. "Sure did. He's revving up like a motorbike." Her voice turned singsong, teasing. "Italo's got a _see_-cret."

He swallowed; he heard the _ulp_, and, from Kristal's quick smile, was sure the girls did too. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kristal leaned over him, locking eyes. The pale gray irises looked like the eyes of a ghost. "Tell me five things, Italo Montefiore. Trivial things about you or your life that wouldn't appear on any file. They don't have to be true – in fact, at least one should be a lie." After a pause, she said, "Not for me, Italo, for you. You need this."

He swallowed again. "My brother almost joined the Carabinieri. He withdrew his application."

"True," the little blonde said. "But that might be in a file. You need proof, Italo."

"He changed his mind because he decided he couldn't work for the government."

"Lie," said Kristal immediately, still staring intently at his face.

He hesitated, then said, "His girlfriend talked him out of it. She left him six weeks later."

She nodded. "Both true."

Vee whispered in his ear, "Girls' affections can be _so _unreliable, can't they?"

Kristal was still staring at him. "You're beginning to see, I think. Try again."

He thought for a moment, started to say something, then paused. Then he said, "I was born in the same hospital room as my mother."

The corners of Kristal's mouth turned up. "Equivocal. Someone you know was born in that room, but it wasn't your mother." Her eyes narrowed. "Another relative…. No. Someone close, though. A friend." She smiled wider. "A _girl_friend." The smile turned cool. "I could get her name in less than a minute. Do you want me to show you?"

His throat felt tight when he swallowed this time. "No."

"Good. Then let's not waste any more time. What use does the Five Republics Faction have for a man who renovates old buildings? Old _government _buildings?"

He stared at the door: just a few steps away, and now the table wasn't between anymore…. He didn't realize he'd risen until he felt his weight transfer from his buttocks to his feet.

He cried out as steel pincers sank into his shoulders. He was slammed back down into the seat with enough force to make his teeth click. Vee said conversationally, "Where did you think _you _were going?"

His trapezius muscles were on fire. His shoulders and upper arms felt numb, not properly connected to his body. "I'm not telling you anything."

"Exactly what Luccio said," said Vee behind him, stroking his ear. "Just before he told us everything."

Montefiore stopped breathing. Luccio Valeri was a weapons dealer who'd been instrumental in setting up the present operation. He'd been in the safehouse in Bolzano when these maniacs had attacked it. Italo hadn't known whether the man had been captured or killed.

The little blonde stared through him. "That's what we were doing while you were sitting in here waiting. He cracked like an egg, Italo. He didn't know much, but what he knew, he told. We know about the teams who've been training, and how they're armed, and that they were sent to positions along the A1 and SS10 before the safehouse raid here. We know about the bombs, too. Now you're going to tell us the rest." She lifted his hand off the chair arm, effortlessly breaking his grip. She held his hand in hers, turned it palm-up, and began stroking the base of his fingers with her thumb. "You want to know why we put our hair up, I can tell. It's simple. I don't mind changing clothes and taking a shower after an interrogation, but I hate scrubbing body fluids out of this mop."

"Vomit," said Vee. "The worst. Ecch."

"Blood doesn't stain yours like it does mine." Kristal's stroking thumb stopped, resting at the base of the second and third fingers. "Italo, I'm sure you've heard the old adage that torture is a poor interrogation tool, because a man in pain doesn't necessarily tell you the truth, he'll tell you anything that makes the pain stop."

Her thumb sank into his palm. He couldn't cry out; the searing pain stole his voice. His hand jerked hard in reflex, but it was held fast as if clamped in a vise. She increased the pressure, and sweat popped out on his face and back. Tears blurred his vision. He could feel the slender bones in his palm bending aside; his mind filled with the image of them slowly splitting and tearing under the pressure instead of snapping cleanly.

Through the roaring agony, he heard the girl's voice. "But what if your interrogator is someone who always knows when you're lying, sometimes before you even speak? Who dismisses out of hand any cover story, no matter how elaborately prepared and rehearsed? Who sees through every attempt at deception or misdirection, spots every deliberate omission, and disregards every false claim of ignorance? What if the only way to make the pain stop … is to tell the truth?"

She released him. He gasped and clutched his abused limb to his chest with his other hand, waiting for the pain to fade. The fiery agony was gradually replaced by a deep ache that made him afraid to flex his fingers. He gathered his courage and held the hand away from him to examine it, expecting to see the palm blackened already and the fingers all askew. But his hand was unmarked save by a red spot where her thumb had dug in. He flexed the fingers carefully, which freshened the pain somewhat, but the digits worked.

"It'll hurt more later, when it swells up," Kristal said. "And it'll probably cramp up in a few hours."

"Make you jump out of bed screaming, seriously," said Vee.

"The sooner you get a cold pack on it, the better." Kristal leaned forward and rested a hand on his thigh just above the knee. "But that's not going to happen until we're done. And you might need more than one cold pack by then. If you think squeezing that little nerve in your hand hurt, just imagine what I can do with the nerve bundles in your legs, or under your collarbones, or the big one back of your neck."

He swallowed. "You're insane. Both of you."

"Truth." The blonde girl gave him a little smile. "At least, you're certain of it. But you're not really qualified to say, are you? That's not what you do for a living. Or for the Padania." Her grip tightened on his knee.

He forced his teeth to unclench. "You don't frighten me."

From behind, Vee wound her leather-jacketed arms around his neck, a girlfriend's gesture. "Oh, Italo," she said, voice teasing, "I don't have to be a cyborg to know that's a lie."

**By Kiskaloo**

**AUTOSTRADE 1  
SOUTH OF MELEGNANO**

Ensconced in the back of her armored sedan, Minister of Defense Monica Petris spoke with the Carabinieri Chief of Staff at the Palazzo Baracchini in Rome. The Commanding General of the Carabinieri, visiting the grave of Salvo D'Acquisto in Naples, was in transit back to Rome via an AgustaWestland AW109. The Vice-Comandante Generale remained at the headquarters of the GIS in Treviso.

"Do we know how many bombs were detonated?" she asked into her cellphone.

"We believe upwards of a dozen, but reports are still sketchy," the Chief of Staff replied a moment later.

"How many cities?"

"We have confirmed detonations in Milan, Bergamo and Verona, with a new report from Bolzano."

The head of the Security Detail's phone rang and he fished it out of his front suit pocket. He spoke quietly for a few moments and then motioned to get the attention of Minister Petris.

"Minister, there has been a bomb threat called in for the A1 and A7 bridges crossing the Po and the Polizia Stradale have closed the bridge and are diverting traffic off at Piacenza Nord and Piacenza Sud ramps."

"Can we take another route?"

"There has also been a hazardous materials spill on State Highway 412 and a traffic accident on SP199 and Padania involvement has not been ruled out for them."

"They say this car is bomb-proof, so should we risk it?" Monica asked.

"It certainly isn't buoyant, Minister. If they drop the span with us on it, we'll sink to the bottom of the Po within seconds," the head of the Security Detail replied. "The local Carabinieri unit is setting up a command post in the town hall in Piacenza to provide video and satellite links, so I suggest we divert to that location."

"Very well," the Minister of Defense acquiesced.

* * *

**PALAZZO DEI MERCANTI  
PIACENZA**

An Iveco Daily mobile command post from the 3rd Carabinieri Battalion parked itself in the back of the town hall, cables snaking through an open door and into a conference room where laptops and video projectors had been setup. While basic, it allowed Minister Petris to communicate with her staff at the Palazzo Baracchini as well as the Prime Minister at the Palazzo Chigi and the Minister of the Interior at the Palazzo del Viminale.

A search of the main road and rail bridges across the Po River did indeed discover explosive devices and further examination identified them having the signature of Franco and Franca. While the timers had been successfully deactivated, the anti-tampering devices meant extra care to be undertaken when they were removed. An Explosives Ordnance Disposal team from the Operational Divers Group of the Italian Naval Special Forces were deployed to remove them, however the bridges were not expected to re-open until well after dark. As what alternate routes that were available south soon gridlocked, the Carabinieri were considering sending an AW109 helicopter to a nearby public soccer field to extricate the Minister.

**By TheScarredMan**

Jean Croce's office was small and spare. It was furnished with only a desk and two chairs liberated from the hidden underground rooms; these items occupied half the floor space. A landline and laptop sat on the desk, looking rather lonely. Jean sat behind it, a map of the Alto Adige taped to the wall behind him, listening to the cyborg twins standing almost at attention in front of him. Olga sat in the other chair, occasionally glancing at the chief handler, apparently to gauge his reaction to one bit of information or another. Jean interrupted a dozen times with questions; when the girls reached the end of their report, he asked a dozen more. Finally, he leaned back and folded his arms.

"I have to say," he told them, "the amount of detail in this man's confession is suspicious. Are you sure you weren't fed a cover story?"

"Positive." Kristal shifted her feet. "But he didn't really say everything we learned from him. He doesn't even know he told us some of it."

The chief handler frowned. Before he could speak, Vee said, "Sir, the information is accurate. If you think it's necessary, we can produce a verbal statement from him that's the same as our report in every detail. But it will take time. And he may not be speaking very clearly at the end of it."

He considered them a moment. Kristal felt uncomfortable under the man's gaze; Vee returned the ice-blue stare unflinching. Finally he said, "Not necessary. We'll accept it as presented. Dismissed. But don't go far."

"Yes, sir," they said in unison, and turned to leave.

He sat up abruptly, picked up his phone, and punched two keys. "Put me through to Michele Paglani at his hotel in Milan. Then get me whoever's in charge of the reaction team here. Then I'll want to talk to the Director."

"Good work, girls," Olga said after them.

The twins left with considerably less haste than when they'd entered. In the short hall, Kristal said, "I don't like hurting people, Verotrois."

Vee winced. Their handler never addressed anyone using abbreviations or nicknames, so she was used to the horrible moniker. But Kristal only used it when she was feeling grave and grownup – or angry. Vee said, "That's why we scare them first, so we don't have to hurt them much. He won't feel anything we did to him after a week." Unspoken between them lay any mention of Italo's likely fate, once Jean was certain he'd been wrung dry. At least, Vee thought, it wouldn't be them doing it.

"I wish we could talk to Doc." Their handler was still in Rome, recovering from his latest 'procedure'; the need to extract reliable information from the Agency's captured assets was deemed great enough (and the girls' talents in that regard deemed useful enough) to send them into the field without him. Neither girl had liked that – the thought of Doc lying helpless and alone while a stranger approached him with a needle made Kristal twitch – but orders were orders. A chat or even a text from their special man would have been all the reassurance their hearts needed, but whatever lines of communication that remained open across the border were reserved for official business.

"He's probably still groggy from the anesthetic," Vee said as they paused at the door to the common room. "If we were with him, we couldn't do anything for him but watch him sleep." She turned into the doorway and checked abruptly, but not quite fast enough to keep from bumping into someone coming quickly out the door: a dark, swarthy man only half a head taller than Vee. He grabbed her upper arms unnecessarily as they rebounded, and she placed a palm on his broad chest to steady them both. "Carlo. Sorry."

"Me too." The man smiled wide and released her with seeming reluctance. "I wish I'd been going a little faster." Locking eyes, the man stretched out an arm as if to lean on the opposite jamb and bar her way. His hand missed the doorframe and he lurched sideways before he found it on a second try.

Kristal's eyes found the ceiling, but Vee, whose gaze had never wavered from Carlo's face, pretended not to notice. "Thank you for making coffee," she said. "It was wonderful."

"Not my only talent." His smile was supposed to be sexy, Kristal supposed, but to her eyes it wasn't quite a leer. "And not the first time a lady told me it was wonderful."

"I'm sure." Vee lowered her lashes. "I bet you'd make a great handler."

"I wouldn't mind, with the right girl." He grinned. "You ever get tired of sharing Doc, I'll put in a request." He favored Kristal with a glance and a smile. "Or if something happens to him, I'll take you both."

Kristal swallowed her gorge.

Vee nodded, still smiling, though to Kristal it looked a little forced now. "That's sweet. Thank you."

"Well," he said, "got to go check the perimeter. I'm late already, but I'm sure Esposito will understand when I tell him why, eh? Think about me while I'm gone." He sauntered past, headed for the front door.

Kristal made a face. "Why do you _encourage _him like that?"

"He's harmless." Vee head-shrugged, dimpling. "If I ever kissed his cheek, he'd probably blush."

"Harmless. Does he realize what he _said_? Talking about our handler like, like…"

"He didn't mean anything," Vee said quietly as she turned into the room. "He just doesn't understand. None of them do, if they're not handlers."

"Half the handlers don't either."

_But all of the cyborgs do_, was the unspoken thought between them.

For half an hour, they mingled with other cyborgs and grownups who came and went, playing cards or sharing a snack or just gossiping; Vee was outgoing and upbeat, Kristal rather more withdrawn, the opposite of their usual demeanors.

Vee, standing at the counter beside her sister with half a shared sandwich in her hand, glanced around at the agents scattered through the room. "Kay, you ever notice how cute we all are? The cyborgs, I mean."

Kristal, chewing a bite from her half, didn't answer, but she gave her twin a quizzical look.

"Seriously. We're not pinups, but compared to any other crowd of girls, like in a mall or a theater, we're catalog models at least. Not a plain one in the bunch. How did that happen, do you suppose?"

Kristal knew that Vee was simply trying to raise her out of her funk, but she played along. "Design, of course. They don't call us 'dolls' for nothing. The engineers can make a second-gen look any way they want. I'll bet regular features are easier to make, and harder for witnesses to describe. Besides, everybody knows Mr. Duvalier likes pretty girls." _And twins,_ she thought. _Which makes me wonder sometimes if we were always twins, or even sisters._

"Well, what about the first-gens? They didn't get altered when they converted. But you can hardly talk to one of them without patting her on the head or pinching a cheek."

"Are you joking? They were all selected by their handlers. If you're a man, and they tell you to pick a little girl to raise and train, of course you'd choose a little doll like Angie or Etta." She took a tiny bite of her sandwich. Then another thought occurred to her, and she tucked the food into her cheek to talk. "It's another layer of disguise, really. Not just a little girl, but a cute little girl. Might stay a Padan gunman's trigger finger for an extra half second."

Vee nodded at Triela, who'd just come in: the first-gen's manner was uncharacteristically quiet and unsmiling, making her look older than her usual fourteen years. Her hair was pulled up off her neck in a long ponytail. "And that one? If I hear right, Hilshire didn't exactly pick her."

"But if you do hear right," Kristal said quietly, "she was still picked for her looks. Just not by him." She chewed and swallowed.

Later, they shared a couch in the common room, watching the news. International coverage concentrated on the brewing banking crisis and the military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Local programming gave more time to soccer scores than to the 'quarantine' in the Alto Adige.

"You two." A uniformed man stood in the doorway, a huge hand wrapped around the door frame, the top of his bald head brushing the top of the jamb: Fausto, another of the SRT troopers. His expression was heavy-lidded and stern. "Get your skinny little asses down to Jean's office. You have a call."

The sisters stood. Kristal said, "A call?"

"From National Hospital."

Kristal gasped and flew out of the room. The corner of Fausto's mouth quirked as she rushed by. He said to Vee, "What, not anxious to talk to the old man?"

"I am," Vee said, "but she needs him more." She stepped close and tipped her chin up to join eyes with the big man. "You did this."

"Credit where it's due. Jean mentioned finding you a reward. I just made a suggestion."

Vee kissed her fingertips, reached up over her head, and touched them to Fausto's lips. "Priscilla would be _so _lucky to have you." She hurried after her sister.

"_Hey_-"

**By Kisklaoo**

**PAGANI RESIDENCE  
PARCO SOLARI, MILAN**

Michele's iPhone started to play the "The Imperial March" and Kara knew that meant Jean Croce would be on the other end of the line.

"He wasted no time in calling a 'What Went Wrong' meeting," Kara commented from the bed in the master bedroom. She reached for the remote and muted the television audio.

Though she could only hear one side of the conversation, it quickly became to clear that Jean had not called them to order them back to the safe house.

"Is your school uniform here?" Michele asked Kara once he ended the call.

"Yes."

"Please change into it and configure your XM8 as a PDW," Michele ordered. "Then fire up the Fiorano. We're going to Piacenza."

"I'm on it," Kara replied and leapt off the bed.

* * *

With the major Autostrade gridlocked, Kara used secondary highways and back roads, giving the V12 of the Ferrari 599GTB it's head whenever possible. To help clear the road ahead – and keep law enforcement from pulling them over - Michele had plugged in a set of flashing LED emergency vehicle dash lights and replaced the standard plates with plates registered to the Carabinieri.

Seventy minutes after they left Milan, Kara pulled the Ferrari into the front of the Pallazzo dei Mercanti. Dressed in a school uniform consisting of a white shirt, black jacket, red tie, checkered miniskirt and black leather knee boots, she reached behind the driver's seat and removed a custom-designed messenger bag that held her XM8 PDW and P2000SK pistol along with silencers and spare magazines before following her handler inside.

Michele walked up to the reception desk and removed his credentials.

"I'm Colonel Pagani with the AISE. I need to speak with Captain Montermini immediately."

Within moments, the head of Minister Petris' Security Detail arrived and saluted.

"Situation report," Michele ordered.

"Minister Petris was last seen approximately an hour ago, sir. She'd excused herself to visit the restroom and when she had not returned after 15 minutes, a female staffer was sent to check in on her and reported her not present. We then commenced a search of the building with no success.

"During that time we received a call from the Operations Center informing them of the intelligence on a kidnap attempt. We identified the tunnel and followed it to an abandoned building approximately 200 meters northwest. We assume they're trying to extricate by car so we've alerted the police forces in the area and closed access to the A21 and A1, as well as SP10, operating under the assumption they would want to take her north or west."

"Take me to the tunnel," Michele ordered.

"Excuse me, miss," one of the junior staffers said when Kara tried to follow.

"She's with me," Michele ordered, and Kara was allowed to pass.

They descended into the basement and passed through a hidden door in one of the foundation walls into a tunnel. Emergency lamps had been placed at intervals to provide illumination. They walked through and emerged through a similar door into the basement of another building.

"Do you have any articles of the Minister's clothing?" Michele asked.

"Her blazer."

"Bring it, please," Michele ordered. Once it had arrived, Michele handed it to Kara.

"Try and see if you can isolate the scent of her perfume to track her."

A look of concern crossed Kara's face. "I can detect the scent, but tracking it…"

"We need to know where they took her from here," Michele said.

Kara nodded and took the coat from Michele, sniffing the collar area. She handed it back to Michele who handed it to Captain Montermini. Kara tentatively moved around the room, the two men giving her plenty of distance. She started up the stairs to the next level, but stopped once she entered the next room.

"It's hard to detect it with the other smells. I don't have anywhere near the capability of Beatrice," Kara noted.

"I know, but Beatrice is in Rome and you're here. Please try, Kara."

His cyborg nodded and partitioned her mind, filtering out familiar scents to focus on Minister Petris' perfume. Fortunately, her captors were all male and her confidence started to rise. Michele reached out and took her hand in his, reinforcing it even more.

Kara led them through the building to a loading area. She proceeded to a large rolling steel door, which she rolled up to give access to the outside. They found themselves facing an alley that ran a score of meters in either direction where they emptied onto streets.

"I can't detect the scent anymore. Sorry," Kara said, her shoulders slumping.

"That means they moved her into a vehicle," Montermini noted and Michele nodded his head.

"Batsu," Kara mentioned. Michele gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

"Now I need your expert eyes. Look for any type of camera – CCTV; bank teller machine; speed camera; anything that might allow us to get a picture of the vehicle they put her in and a direction."

Kara nodded and started down the alley towards the main street. Michele turned to Montermini.

"Get in touch with the local police chief and get some detectives to assist in securing the footage."

"Yes, Colonel."

* * *

Unlike the United Kingdom, where it was said that CCTV cameras outnumbered people, Italy employed them only in "the most sensitive areas" of about 50 cities. Fortunately, the area of the Palazzo dei Mercanti ranked as one of those areas and within 20 minutes they had identified a Fiat panel van carrying the livery of "Larini Brothers Plumbing" leaving the area and proceeding northwest. Tapping into speed and traffic cameras allowed them to track the vehicle along the Via Emilia Pavese towards the onramp to the A21. However, there was no record of the vehicle passing through the Autostrade tollgates. Undercover agents were sent in to examine the surrounding area and identified the panel van parked in a commercial park just east of the Po.

Once the location was identified, covert surveillance units were put in place. Infrared thermography confirmed that the panel truck had been parked for some time and, when directed at the building, identified a half-dozen people inside.

"What do you think they're waiting for?" Captain Montermini asked. The mobile command post had been moved into a garage a couple of blocks away in case there were lookouts.

"They expected things to be significantly more chaotic," Michele replied. "The majority of their bombs either were not placed or were prevented from going off. That means the police and military presence is heavier than they planned for."

Michele turned to Kara.

"Any word from the SRT?"

"They're still tied up in ordinance removal in the north, so looks like it's just me," Kara replied.

"I don't like the odds," Montermini noted. From observing her mannerisms around Michele, he'd quickly determined that Kara was one of the cyborg operatives he'd heard about.

"Aye, it won't be much of a challenge," Kara replied with a confident smile.

"Don't get cocky," Michele replied. "This isn't the usual search and destroy mission. The objective is to ensure the safe recovery of the Minister."

"Yes, sir," Kara said, her manner switching to one of cool professionalism. She'd changed out of her school uniform and knee boots into a black tactical jumpsuit and combat boots as used by the German Bundeswehr. She'd also put her hair into a ponytail, which she'd stuffed down the back of the jumpsuit.

* * *

Kara crept along the back of the building, hugging the wall to stay out of sight from the windows on the second floor. The complex contained only minimal video security surveillance and it had been confirmed that their signal routed only to the security office – currently staffed by two Carabinieri sergeants.

As part of her standard load-out, Kara carried a magazine of subsonic .40 S&W Jacketed Hollow Point rounds and a sound suppressor for her pistol. Both were in place on her weapon today. The heavy bullet weight and low speed made such rounds rather ineffective against body armor, therefore Kara spent many hours practicing on the range to hone her skills with headshots.

Kara quietly clambered onto a large rubbish dumpster and used it to vault onto the roof.

"Radio check," her handler called.

"Reading you five-by-five," Kara replied.

She carefully made her way across the roof, staying low so as to not be visible from the ground. Reaching a wind turbine ventilation fan farthest from the location of the targets, Kara pulled a small crowbar from a pocket on her leg, proceeded to tear off the two aluminum anchor strips, and then lifted the entire assembly off and placed it to one side, giving her access to the crawlspace above.

Kara ducked her head in and swung the tactical flashlight attached to her pistol around in a 360-degree sweep, identifying the support studs – and scores of cobwebs.

"Spiders…why does it have to be spiders…" she muttered. The conditioning clamped down on Kara's inherent arachnophobia and she lowered herself onto one of the studs and proceeded to make her way towards the area where they believed Minister Petris to be held. Lifting the corner of a ceiling tile revealed an empty hallway and agitated male Italian voices coming from an open door. The air reeked with cigarette smoke.

"The longer we wait, the better the chance the police have to find her. We need to get the bitch out of here and to the safe house."

"But are they still safe? The government has compromised one already. Perhaps they have the others under surveillance?"

"Well we can't stay here. Gianmaria says the place is crawling with Carabinieri and Poliza di Stato bikes and cars."

"But what if they're guarding the toll booths to the A21?"

"Then we take a back route."

Kara listened for Monica Petris' voice, but heard nothing. She also could not reach the ceiling tiles over the room due to there being no support beams in that area. Kara therefore backed up until she was at the far end of the hallway, removed one of the ceiling tiles, and dropped to the ground, pistol at the ready. She flattened herself against the wall and slid towards the door, thankful for the thick carpeting that muffled her footsteps.

"I'm going to check the truck," a voice said and Kara froze. A burly man exited the door, but at an oblique angle away from Kara that meant his peripheral vision did not take in her presence. She matched his footfalls and just as she reached the edge of the door, she pulled the trigger, sending the bullet into the base of his skull, where it shredded his cerebellum and he fell face-first to the ground.

Kara stepped into the doorway and started to identify and prioritize targets. Two men were present, one behind a desk and another leaning against a wall, both with lit cigarettes.

Kara's first shot smashed through the skull of the sitting man, knocking his head back, the back of his chair moving in sympathy. She adjusted her aim and put the second bullet through the temple of the leaning man, whose brain was still trying to process the visual of his partner's violent end before following into the void.

A quick survey of the room identified no other humans, but Kara hoped a closed door to the left would lead her to the prize. While her rounds had been subsonic and the exhaust gasses suppressed, to Kara's sensitive ears the two engagements had roared and she could not assume that nobody had noticed. She therefore went for the door and kicked it off the hinges, crouching as she entered.

Minister Petris sat on the couch, her hands and feet loosely bound with the large plastic zip-ties favored by law enforcement for crowd control. The shock on her face from the door flying in quickly faded as she recognized Kara.

Kara's eyes swept the room, but it appeared empty.

"Are you alone?" Kara asked.

"No, but I don't think the person guarding me is going to be a problem," Minister Petris noted, indicating with a nod of her head the door lying at an angle on the floor. Kara hooked her right boot underneath an edge and lifted her leg, revealing the unconscious form of a man, bleeding from a broken nose and a gash on his scalp from where the door had slammed into him.

Kara smiled and activated her radio.

"Position secured. Three hostiles terminated and one captured. The Minister is unharmed."

* * *

"Well done," Michele said, giving Kara's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Do you think this will get us out of the 'What Went Wrong' meeting?" Kara asked.

As if reading her mind, Michele's iPhone started to play The Imperial March.

**By EverFrost**

The sky grew a pinkish color as the sun set over the snow-capped ridgeline. They could see it from their small encampment they made for the night. This was the team that was to meet up with Isabella, who had just captured an FRF hideout near a mid-sized lake in the country side. They  
were too tired to drive all night to the hideout, so Isabella was, unfortunately, left to her own devices.

"Anyone got any smokes?" A young, thin girl asked. She was fairly tall, had blonde hair that flowed to her shoulders, and contacts that reacted differently in different lights, changing their color, and sometimes glowing. This was Dimah, the marksman and driver of the team.

"Nah, I'm all out." An older man spoke, his voice sounded gruff, but kind. This was Henry, one of two handlers assigned to this mission. He was mainly the handler for Dimah and Cody.

"That sucks." She rolled her eyes, and continued to clean up her DIO KH2002 Sama rifle. "I'm gonna go for a swim, cool off." Dimah slapped her rifle back together, stripped down to her underclothes, and waded into the lake. The water was cold, but it felt nice to her, regardless.

Cody smiled at Dimah, blushing a bit when he saw her strip down and walk down into the water. He was a fairly strong guy, about 6' 2" in height, and was skilled with hand to hand combat.

"Cody, snap out of it man, she's outta your league." Henry said, laughing. "You'll find someone, trust me."

"Yeah, but I miss Jenn." He watched Dimah swim in the lake, which was now shimmering in the moonlight. "It's not fair, really, it. It just sucks." He shrugged, before rotating one of his shoulders, trying to loosen up. He picked up his AK-47 and adjusted his optics.

Meanwhile, in their van, Carolina, who was Isabella's handler, operated a stealth drone as it passed over the hideout that Isabella captured. She usually preferred to go with Isabella, but she knew she could handle herself. It was more of a sense of security that caused Carolina to go with Isabella, but this was no Gen 1, and Carolina was no pushover.

"Hey, sweet thing, you there?" Carolina spoke to Isabella over her com.

"Yeah, what's your status?" Isabella replied, sounding tired.

"We've made camp a ways down the road, should be there by sunrise." Carolina said, smiling at a UAV image of the house.

"Alright, well, I'm gonna try to stay up as long as I can I suppose." Isabella shrugged, before looking at her watch. "I'll see you in a while then."

"Yep. Umm….stay safe, would you?" Carolina said, in a caring, yet teasing sort of way that she usually does.

"No promises." Isabella smiled, before shutting off from the feed.

Carolina took her headset off, stepping out of the van for a stretch, before walking over to the group. She sat down on a little folding camping chair, and looked out at the lake, watching the same thing everyone else was, Dimah.

"I take it we aren't watching her for her swimming abilities?" She raised an eyebrow.

Henry and Cody shook out of their collective stupor. "What? Oh…umm….no, we. Just. Ah hell." Cody sighed as Dimah walked up the beach and back to the group.

"Did I miss some divine revelation or somethin'?" Dimah asked, drying off and putting her shorts and "Metallica" tee-shirt back on.

"No, you just. Nothing." Cody finished aligning and recalibrating his optics, setting the AK-47 between his legs. "Hey Carolina, can you toss me an MRE?"

Carolina nodded and threw him one of the pouches from her backpack. Cody checked the bag.  
"Rice? Again? I mean, I ain't complaining, but I just kinda get tired of the same shit all the time." He opened the pouch, removed the contents, and followed the instructions to cook the rations. Meanwhile, he tapped his feet to nothing in particular.

Meanwhile, out in the mountains themselves, two figures moved through the shadows of the night.  
In this pair were one man, wearing a thick winter coat under a white snow suit, and one little girl, wearing the same. The girl carried an AK-12 assault rifle on her back and a PM Makarov on her thigh. The man carried a Barrett M107 .50 caliber sniper system and a Steyr M9A1 on his thigh.

They remained silent as they trundled their way up a slope to a cliff face overlooking a road. The man lay down on his stomach and positioned the rifle, and the girl pulled out a spotter scope. "What's our target again?" The little girl said, as she got comfortable where she lay.

"Armored munitions convoy. We do one of two things. Take out any foot mobiles and secure the trucks with the weapons, or we blow everything up. I'd recommend the first option. Not that you have any choice in the matter this time."

"Fun." She looked through her scope. _Nothing yet, this is why I hate takedowns like this. You get there hours before, and nothing happens. _She took a sip from the tube attached to her CamelPak backpack, which held inside of it a warm substance, which was like a caffeinated hot chocolate that she made up herself for missions like this.

"This is gonna take a while." He kept his eyes down scope, and let out a sigh, his breath coming out as a bone white fog.

"Why'd you get the M9A1? You shoulda gotten an FN or something. I hear those 5.7s can crack armor nicely." She tried to make small talk with her new handler, unsuccessfully.

She put in her earbuds and listened to one of her playlists that she loved to listen to on missions, the Halo 4 remixes soundtrack. Odd as it was, it was something to pass the time. A few hours passed, and the young Ariel finally spotted something on her scope."Two armored personnel carriers and one semi-truck. Is this our target?"

"Affirmative." He racked the charging handle on his sniper rifle, before placing his cheek on the cheek rest, and looking down the scope.

"Target incoming. 12 oh 5. You know what to do bro." She smiled at that. Seconds later, the cracks sounded in rapid succession. She looked down her scope. "Hit 'em in the engine block? Nice."

Moments after that, the APC's scattered, since the truck was now toast. This was a strange tactic, for sure. Steven knew it was a trap. No sane man leaves valuable weapons and ammunition out in the open like that.

"Let's displace." He slung his rifle and slowly crawled back, Ariel following behind.

**By Robert Frazer**

Tomas had terrible eyesight. Not so much in the physical sense – in fact, he'd maintained a immaculate 20:20 throughout his life, and was quite proud of it – but still, they regularly needed cleaning. Throughout his life he seen the world through a soft and yielding myopic blur – until someone had shoved through the fog to smash him into the ground and pound his face into the gravel. In a way, it was a blessing, for as he scraped the dirt away it also peeled the scales from his eyes. The first stone seemed like a small thing, but it was all the more painful for being a piercing point that could embed itself in the most awkward corner – years ago, when he had been working in a Bruneck café and had overheard a noisy tourist blaring down her cellphone that she was staying in the "German bit of Italy", he had first been made aware of the disparaging dismissal to which he and his home had been consigned.

Today, he was experiencing a similar pain. In times past he had adored the mountains – the tall walls of the Dolomites rising up in sheer, heady ascents, as solid as towers and as prominent as spires. He had visited an archaeological site once and seen rooms traced out in the indentation of their foundations – living amongst these mountains was like the wall-walks of a palace of giants that only vanished into the sky because something of such incredible scale passed beyond the resolution of human vision. What had been recently revealed to him was more prosaic. The sharp-edged ridges of the Southern Limestone Alps were no longer steeples.

They were teeth.

Another report ricocheted off of one valley wall and spun off the other. Grieg winced and instinctively ducked as another report ricocheted off one valley side and spun off the other. He glanced over at Tomas despairingly. Tomas only wormed his way deeper into his corner, feeling the damp of the moss seeping through his trousers.  
They were both crouched under root-cracked rocks in a small but dense copse of firs – there was a narrow stream passing through between them, but it was less a gaily babbling brook and more of a vague spattered line of boggy black puddles, as though one of the giants had spilt a few drops when carrying his coffee from the kitchen. It provided cover... in same way as blinkers, Tomas thought bitterly. The echoes of gunfire had been washing over them erratically, buffeting them back to their shelter each time they dared to nudge out like a marmot sniffing the air – as reports caromed and careered off the mountainsides, shots that could have been two hundred or two thousand yards away reverberated a crazy and disorienting course, without reference and as unknowable as the hellish imps of the Agency that snuck out from crowds and burst out through wall-spaces. The shots could be coming from anywhere.

They could be coming from everywhere.

"We're getting our asses handed to us." Grieg grimaced, glancing upwards for a reason that he probably thought was significant in some way.

"So what else is new?" Tomas spat bitterly.

"It shouldn't have been like this, though..." There was a plaintive, wistful tone to Grieg's voice, but to Tomas's ears it was a reedy childish whine. "We... we were prepared. The Agency relies on surprise. No-one expects them until it's too late. We were ready ... we were..." He ground the heels of his palms into his eyes. Tomas wondered when he would start bawling for his pacifier.

The hollow bass boom of what sounded like a shotgun (or a fifty-cal, or a stun grenade, or a backfiring car exhaust, or a snare drum) puffed over their heads.

Tomas looked past Grieg and through the trees; between each trunk he could only see the stone of the mountainside, the jaws closing in.

"No plan survives the first contact," Tomas said, the cliché creating a sense of familiarity and helping to quell his own creeping insecurity that he was hiding behind his flinty mask, "so we make a new plan. The Agency has us pinned, applying pressure in the current direction... so we alter the angle."

"Hooo-_how_?" Grieg's animal call was initially an impassioned shout before he hastily strangled it into a harsh whisper. "We've committed everything! Anyone who's left is probably gone to ground like... Hell, like us!" He threw his arms up, not caring if bullets scissored through the copse and snickered off his fingers.  
"We have." Tomas steepled his fingers. "Others haven't."

Grieg looked confused, and his eyes narrowed as he understood Tomas's implication. Something to hate and resent provided him with some focus. "The Tyrol Bridge-Builders? Your old faction? We told you when you joined us, we won't have any truck with them. They're retrocessors. We are fighting for independence... not replacing Italian oppression with Austrian Empire."  
"Look at it this way." Tomas began with weary patience. "Yes, they're mostly a bunch of graduates addled by political philosophy classes, but as it stands they're still warm bodies and needed reinforcements. They've been chomping at the bit to make an action for months – at present we've been able to keep a lid on them but we need to relieve some pressure before they vent on us in a turf war. I know they have the means to inflict some pain. If they help to confound the enemy, all well and good – and if the Agency wastes its ammo on them, too... well, two birds, one stone."

Another report sounded, with a fading echo that elongated into a distant distended groan of pain.

"Make the call." Grieg scowled.

Tomas found his mobile phone in his jacket pocket – the fact that it hadn't bounced out of the unzipped pouch in their pell-mell flight from their last holdout might have been seen as Providential. Trusting that the Social Welfare Agency couldn't quite yet pluck radio waves out of the air (even though they could seemingly teleport, walk on water, and keep their perms intact through multiple gunfights), he reached back into his memory and dialled a number.


End file.
